Garuda Indonesia Wrongly Purchased 17 Bombardier CRJ1000 Planes, Former Commissioner Peter Gontha: Who Told Them To Buy?

Garuda Indonesia Bombardier CRJ1000 aircraft. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

JAKARTA - Former Commissioner of PT Garuda Indonesia (Persero) Tbk Peter F. Gontha assessed that the airline's management had purchased the wrong CRJ1000 aircraft. He also questioned who proposed to buy the plane.

"This is the wrong Garuda CRJ plane, there are 17 of them. Who told you to buy it? Who is the broker?," he wrote on his personal Instagram account @pitergontha, quoted on Thursday, October 28.

According to Peter, the plane is now unusable. As a result, Garuda had to bear the losses from the decision to buy the aircraft.

"Now unemployed and reversed. Losing millions?," he continued.

One of the netizens with an account named @dwilliamhs responded to Peter's post. He said that based on the information he received, the CRJ1000 aircraft was not suitable for use in Indonesia. This is related to the distance traveled.

"Heard that this plane is suitable in Europe, where the distance is short, the number of passengers is not too many and the airport supports this size, right? So it's not suitable in Indonesia, and when you want to lease it to another airline, you don't want to. , some say that at the time of purchase it was politically driven, but they don't know if it's true or not," he wrote.

Peter also responded to these comments. However, he did not agree or deny comments from @dwilliamhs. He only replies using emoticons.

Previously, the Ministry of SOEs under the leadership of Erick Thohir decided to return 12 Bombardier CRJ-1000 aircraft and terminated the contract with Nordic Aviation Capital or NAC which was due in 2027.

In addition, Garuda Indonesia also submitted a proposal for early termination of the lease contract for six other Bombardier CRJ1000 aircraft to Export Development Canada (EDC). Where, Garuda is negotiating the early payment settlement contract for the financial lease of the six aircraft.

The negotiation process with NAC itself has been carried out several times. Even so, the NAC has not given an approval response. Shareholders consider that this is not a problem. In their review, the shareholders still decided to return 12 CRJ-1000 aircraft.

SOE Minister Erick Thohir said that within a year, Garuda lost up to 30 million US dollars or around Rp. 419.8 billion (exchange rate of Rp. 13,996) because it rented the Bombardier CRJ1000. In fact, Erick said the rental price for 12 Bombardier CRJ1000 aircraft per year was only US$27 million or around Rp. 377.8 billion.