ER
IN LINE with intensive efforts to restore business performance, the national airline Garuda Indonesia is accelerating the early return of fleets whose leases have not yet matured.
One of these strategic steps was marked by the return of two B737-800 NG fleets to one of the aircraft lessors. The acceleration of the return is carried out after a mutual agreement between Garuda Indonesia and the aircraft lessor, where one of the conditions for returning the aircraft is to change the registration code of the aircraft concerned.
According to the President Director of Garuda Indonesia, Irfan Setiaputra, in his official press release (6/7), the acceleration of the return of fleets whose lease period has not yet matured is part of Garuda Indonesia’s strategic steps in optimizing fleet productivity by accelerating the aircraft rental period.
“This is an important step that we need to take in the midst of pressure from business performance due to the COVID-19 pandemic, where our main focus is adjusting to projected market needs in the new normal era,” he said.
He continued, currently, Garuda Indonesia is also continuing to communicate with other aircraft lessors, of course, by prioritizing the applicable legal and compliance aspects. As is known, the COVID-19 pandemic hit Garuda Indonesia so that the state-owned airline had a debt maturing as of May 2021 of IDR70 trillion or US$4.9 billion of its total IDR140 trillion debt. As a debt it is a loan to the bank.
Based on Garuda’s financial report as of September 2020, its short-term loans to banks reached US$754.3 million. Meanwhile, long-term loans were recorded at US$260.95 million, of which US$92.6 million matured within a year. [sources/photo special]
