Save Yourself From Destruction, Garuda Indonesia Optimizes Cargo Business

Garuda Indonesia cargo plane. (Photo: Doc. Garuda Indonesia)

JAKARTA - The national airline Garuda Indonesia continues to strive to accelerate the recovery of the company's performance in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic by maximizing the market share of transportation logistics. President Director of PT Garuda Indonesia Irfan Setiaputra said the acceleration step was in line with the growth momentum of the national export sector.

Irfan said this was also in line with the projected growth of the national export sector which is expected to continue to increase, following a report from the Central Statistics Agency which recorded a consistent increase in Indonesia's export traffic in June 2021 with a successful growth rate of up to 54.46 percent compared to the same period last year. then.

"We continue to take various steps to improve business performance in a sustainable manner. The trend of growth in the national export sector is an important momentum for efforts to optimize supporting business lines carried out by the company amid pressure from business performance due to the COVID-19 pandemic, especially through the cargo and charter business," he said. in his official statement, Friday, July 16.

Consistently, said Irfan, the company managed to record increasingly promising growth in cargo transportation. Until last May 2021, Garuda Indonesia Group managed to record cargo transportation growth of up to 35 percent compared to the same period in 2020.

Furthermore, said Irfan, this consistency is in line with the performance of the cargo business at the end of 2020 where the company managed to record air cargo traffic which touched the level of 99 percent of cargo transportation performance in the period before the pandemic.

"With this positive growth trend, Garuda Indonesia will continue to optimize fleet utilization for the expansion of its cargo flight network to support direct call activities for leading export commodities and MSMEs from various parts of Indonesia. One of them is through the operation of two passenger freighter fleets which now serve a number of domestic and international cargo flights. international," he said.

It is undeniable, said Irfan, that the pandemic situation has prompted shifting behavior in the aviation industry's business trends, where the cargo business line is now one of the main pillars of Garuda Indonesia's business income, amid the decline in passenger transport traffic due to the pandemic that has been going on since last year. .

"Through the submission of financial statements for the 2020 financial year, Garuda Indonesia recorded operating revenues of 1.4 billion dollars, supported by scheduled flight revenues of 1.2 billion dollars, non-scheduled flight revenues of 77 million dollars, and other revenue lines of 214 million dollars. " he said.

Furthermore, Garuda Indonesia also recorded a decrease in flight operating expenses by 35.13 percent to 1.6 billion dollars compared to last year's 2.5 billion dollars. This is also supported by strategic cost efficiency measures, one of which is through efforts to renegotiate aircraft leases and other supporting operational cost efficiency which are currently being optimized by the Company.

"Through these efforts, currently Garuda Indonesia has succeeded in saving operational costs of up to 15 million dollars per month," he said.

Meanwhile, said Irfan, responding to the disclaimer note (opinion does not provide an opinion) on the Garuda Indonesia Financial Report for the 2020 financial year, in principle the company certainly respects the independence of the auditors who recorded this information in the books of financial performance reports throughout 2020.

"The disclaimer note was given with consideration of the business continuity aspect that became the attention of the auditors in the midst of restructuring efforts carried out by the company as a performance recovery measure," he explained.