Garuda Indonesia Delays Add 3 New Aircraft, Focuses On Improvement Of Existing Fleet

President Director of Garuda Indonesia Glenny H Kairupan (right). (Photo: Mery Handayani/VOI)

TANGERANG - PT Garuda Indonesia (Persero) Tbk chose to postpone the additional 3 new aircraft to support its business operations.

Instead, the company decided to focus on improving the existing fleet.

Garuda Indonesia President Director Glenny H Kairupan said his company had indeed signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) ordering four aircraft fleets.

However, continued Glenny, his company has just paid a down payment (DP) for one plane. Meanwhile, the remaining three orders will be postponed, because Garuda Indonesia will focus on improving the existing fleet before expanding.

"So the last one was an MoU order for four planes, but the only one that got the DP was one plane, the three we postponed first, we postponed it because we prioritized it for repairs first, one (aircraft) was already there," he said at a press conference at Garuda Sentra Operasi, Tangerang, Banten, Thursday, November 13.

Glenny said, this delay is in line with the direction of recovery given by the Danantara Government and Investment Management Agency (BPI).

He said that efforts to save Garuda were said to have started from solving various accumulated operational problems.

"The reason is that the priority is improvement first, because if we don't fix it, we will continue to pay," he said.

Glenny also said that this restructuring process took at least two years to reverse Garuda's financial condition from loss to profit again.

Meanwhile, Deputy President Director of Garuda Indonesia, Thomas Sugiarto Oentoro, said the company was recalculating all business expansion plans.

Thomas bilang, langkah ini juga sejalan dengan adanya jabatan baru Direktur Transformasi yang saat ini diduduki Neil Raymond Mills.

“Karena memang dengan adanya yang menjadi direktur transformasi kami, kami menghitung ulang keperluan armada dan juga menyusun ulang network dan rute planning kami. Jadi bukan kami membatalkan tapi sebagian kita akan tunda. Sampai analisa itu sudah difinalisasi,” ucapnya.

Thomas said this step was also in line with the new position of Director of Transformation currently occupied by Neil Raymond Mills.

"Because indeed with the presence of the director of our transformation, we re-calculated the needs of the fleet and also rearranged our network and planning routes. So we didn't cancel it, but we will postpone some of it. Until the analysis has been finalized," he said.