Indonesian Airlines Grounded

By Barrie | June 26th, 2007 | No Comments

Indonesian authorities have grounded nine airlines which failed to improve their safety record, the transport ministry said. Four airlines had their operating licenses revoked altogether and five others were suspended for failing to improve their safety standards over the past three months.

An official at the air transport directorate-general’s office, who identified herself only as Fitri, said Jatayu Gelang Sejahtera, Aviasi Upataraksa, Alfa Trans Dirgantara and Prodexim, all of which use aircraft that carry fewer than 30 passengers, had their licences cancelled as the report in the Antara News explains.

Those suspended were Germania Trisila Air, Atlas Delta Setia, Survey Udara Penas, Kura-kura Aviation and SMAC. They have been given three months to improve their safety standards, Fitri was quoted by Thomson Financial as saying.

The groundings follow the transport ministry’s latest quarterly review of airline safety and comes after a series of accidents in Indonesia’s rapidly growing airline industry.

Flag carrier Garuda Indonesia — one of whose airplanes crashed in March, killing 22 people — has improved its safety standards and is now ranked alone in the top category after being upgraded a tier, Fitri said.

Seven other companies were upgraded from the third and lowest category in the scale to the second, including Adam Air, which lost a jetliner on New Year’s day this year with 102 people on board.

A dozen other airlines, including state-owned Merpati Nusantara, and the Indonesian subsidiary of Air Asia, remain in category two, Fitri said.

Authorities in March said after their survey that none of 20 airlines operating with capacities of more than 30 passengers were in the top safety category, and seven were in the bottom.

The seven were given three months to improve their safety rating or face closure.

Indonesia’s airline industry was deregulated in the 1990s, encouraging many new operators to take to the skies and producing massive passenger growth, but the recent disasters and other accidents have raised fears of lax safety.

Experts have blamed old planes, poor standards and insufficient investment in infrastructure.