What Makes Garuda Interested in Mandala

KUALA LUMPUR, KOMPAS.com - PT Garuda Indonesia is interested in flying the routes abandoned by Mandala which recently suspended its operations due to financial problems.

"If we are asked whether we are interested to take over the routes left by Mandala, the answer would be yes," the company’s marketing vice president Don Jusuf Palito said on the sidelines of the launching of Boeing 737-800NG here on Saturday.

He said however that Garuda still had to study it first with regard to matching it with the needs and capacity, moreover some of the routes had already been served by Garuda.

"Well, certainly we will not immediately take all of them. Frankly speaking we are also still short of planes," he said.

Transportation minister Freddy Numberi earlier said he was not afraid the routes left by Mandala would be neglected.

"There will be airline companies which are interested in them. Right now Mandala’s routes are also served by Batavia Air and Lion Air. I am not too worried would-be passengers would be unserved," he said.

Freddy said if Mandala failed to attract new investors within 45 days its license would be revoked. The president director of Mandala Airlines, Diono Nurjadin, had said he would apply for a deferment to the Commercial Court so that it could conduct restructuring and recover the company’s profit. He said as of January 13, 2011 Mandala would stop temporarily all its operations as part of the restructuring plan.

"If the request for debt deferment is approved, the court would give 45 days to Mandala to submit its business restructuring plan," he said.

Diono believed Mandala would be able to attract new investors to inject funds to the company. Garuda on Saturday started operating New Boeing 737-800NG with 156 seat capacity to serve the route to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, twice day.

"We see good market potentials here (Malaysia). In view of that we hope the operation of the new aircraft would increase the number of passengers from Malaysia to Indonesia to do business, play golf or visiting tourist centers," Don said.

In the future Garuda also plans to expand to Penang, Johor and other destinations in Malaysia.

"We will try to reach other destinations in this country soon," he said.