PT Garuda Indonesia (Persero), Tbk. Garuda Indonesia (IDX: GIAA) is a State-owned Airline in Indonesia, headquartered at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport. The airline is the successor of KLM Interinsulair Bedrijf. Garuda Indonesia is the only SkyTeam member in Indonesia and the second largest airline in Indonesia after Lion Air. Garuda Indonesia operates scheduled flights to a number of destinations including the continents of Asia, Europe and Australia from Jakarta, as well as focus cities, as well as other cities for Hajj flights. This airline is the only airline from Indonesia that flies to Europe, Oceania and America. During the peak of the late 1980s to mid 1990s, Garuda operated a number of extensive airline networks worldwide, with regularly scheduled services to Adelaide, Cairo, Fukuoka, Johannesburg, Los Angeles, Paris, Rome and other European cities., Asia and Australia. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the financial and operational system crisis hit the airline hard, causing Garuda Indonesia to cut services drastically. In 2009, the airline carried out a five-year modernization plan known as Quantum Leap, under which the Emirsyah Satar program overhauled everything from the shape, style, logo and uniform of the airline, as well as a newer and more modern fleet and facilities and a new focus on the market. internationally, and managed to get airline awards such as Most Improved Airline, 5-Star Airline, and World's Best Cabin Crew also received at the International award event, Skytrax.
On December 25, 1949, a representative from KLM who was also a friend of President Soekarno, Dr. Konijnenburg, went before and reported to the president in Yogyakarta that KLM Interinsulair Bedrijf would be handed over to the government according to the results of the Round Table Conference (KMB) and asked him to give the company a name because the plane that would take it from Yogyakarta to Jakarta would later be painted according to that name.. In response to this, President Soekarno answered the question by quoting a line from a Dutch poem by the famous poet, Raden Mas Noto Soeroto in the colonial era which contained, Ik ben Garuda, Vishnoe's vogel, die zijn vleugels uitslaat hoog boven uw eilanden ("I am is Garuda, Vishnu's bird that spreads its wings soaring above your islands"). So on December 28, 1949, a historic flight using a DC-3 aircraft with registration RI-001 belonging to KLM Interinsulair flew President Soekarno from Yogyakarta to Jakarta to attend his inauguration ceremony as President of the United States of Indonesia (RIS) under the name Garuda Indonesian Airways, which was awarded by President Soekarno to this first airline. The first successful flight was initiated by the Wright Brothers in 1903 at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Making other pilots appear and start doing various extraordinary explorations such as that made by Charles Lindbergh who made a flight from New York to Paris across the Atlantic Ocean which was considered one of the fantastic achievements at that time, not only inspiring the people who later became pilots. excellence, but also encouraged the colonizing countries to take advantage of their colonies by equipping the newly developed technology, including the Netherlands.
In order to strengthen the Dutch colonial system, they strengthened the influential transportation system, by establishing an air transportation company called KNILM on October 24, 1928 with a capital of 5 million Gulden which was collected from 32 large companies and entrepreneurs. Then, the funds that had been collected were used to bring in four fleets of Fokker VIII Trimotor aircraft from the Netherlands. After traveling for different lengths of time, the first operation of KNILM was inaugurated on November 1, 1928 by the Governor General of the Netherlands, De Graeff, witnessed by H. Nieuwenhuis as head of KNILM, TH.J. De Bruyn as head of financial administration and Behege as head of the technical department and Meal De Jong as handelszaken (Head of Commerce Section) with the residents of Batavia at Cililitan Airport. After the KNILM flight was disbanded in March 1942 along with the Dutch East Indies falling into the hands of the Japanese, the Dutch re-established another airline called KLM Interinsulair Bedrijf on August 1, 1947 or after Japan surrendered to the Allies and the Dutch returned to the Dutch East Indies. The goal of the Dutch to establish KLM Interinsulair Bedrijf was to return to serving their colonies using 20 Dakota aircraft which were used by KLM.
For the first 10 years, the company was managed by KLM.
However, not long after, on December 28, 1949 as part of the implementation of the KMB (Round Table Conference) agreement in The Hague, KLM IIB was handed over to the Indonesian side and renamed Garuda Indonesian Airways (GIA) facto Garuda Indonesia), where one Dakota registered PK-DPR which brought President Soekarno flying from Jogjakarta (capital of struggle) to Jakarta (capital of the state). Garuda Indonesia obtained an aviation monopoly concession from the government of the Republic of Indonesia in 1950 from KLM. Initially, Garuda Indonesia was the result of a joint venture between the Indonesian government and KLM with the calculation that the Indonesian government owned 51% of the shares. For the first 10 years, the company was managed by KLM. But due to nationalist coercion, KLM sold part of its shares in 1954 to the Indonesian government and at the same time, the airline owned 46 aircraft, including 14 DeHavilland Herons which Garuda bought between 1953-1954. In 1955, Garuda Indonesia inaugurated a hajj flight service to Jeddah from Jakarta with transit to Bangkok, Kolkata, Karachi and Sharjah using a Convair CV-340 aircraft. At that time, Garuda Indonesia had 27 aircraft, educated staff, airports, and flight schedules. Garuda Indonesia's readiness makes them different from other pioneer airlines in Asia.
Entering a new decade, Garuda phased out its De Havilland Heron in 1960. It is not known for certain why they sold it, Garuda sold their Heron to Fujita Airlines from Japan, one of which fell on August 17, 1963. This decade was a decade of development as well as progress for Garuda. In 1961, Garuda brought in a Lockheed L-188C Electra turboprop aircraft, the three new aircraft entered active service in January 1961 and were named "Bali Island", "Borobudur Temple" and "Lake Toba", which is the name of an Indonesian tourist destination that best known abroad, in 1963, Garuda opened a flight route to Tokyo by plane L-188 with a stop in Hong Kong, this route became known as the "Emerald Route". Garuda entered the jet era in 1964 with the arrival of three new Convair 990A aircraft named "Majapahit", "Pajajaran" and "Sriwijaya", which is the name of an ancient kingdom in Indonesia and made Garuda Indonesia the first airline in Southeast Asia to operate subsonic jet aircraft.. At that time, the four-engined jet Convair 990 was a technologically advanced aircraft and had the highest speed compared to other similar aircraft, such as the Boeing 707 and Douglas DC-8. With this aircraft, Garuda also opens intercontinental flights from Jakarta to Amsterdam from Jakarta with transit to Bangkok, Mumbai, Karachi, Cairo, Rome and Frankfurt. In 1966, Garuda again strengthened its jet fleet by bringing in a new jet aircraft, namely the Douglas DC-8.
Meanwhile, in the late 1960s, Garuda purchased a number of new turboprop aircraft, such as the Fokker F27. This aircraft came in stages from 1969 to 1970 from the sale of several wide-body aircraft to meet the growing domestic market. In 1970, the route to Cairo was changed to Athens. Continued in the 1970-1980s decade. Wiweko Soepono, President Director of Garuda Indonesia, carried out a company revitalization program that included service improvements, changing management systems, anti-KKN, updating and adding to the fleet and adding Domestic and International routes. Later, several aircraft were sold to work on the domestic market with Fokker F-27 and Fokker The F-28 and in the mid-1970s, emerged where a trend of increasing the number of passengers who boarded the plane and this trend was not squandered by Wiweko in its plan called Buy now for tomorrow profit to buy wide-body aircraft with long range and long range. Many passengers, namely, Boeing B747-200 and Douglas DC-10-30 which were designated by Garuda to fly new routes in the continents of Asia, Australia and Europe and in 1982 Garuda Indonesia became the first airline using the Airbus A300B4-600 FFCC (cockpit modification with 2 crewman). Having interesting initiatives and innovations at Garuda Indonesia, Wiweko, who served as President Director for 16 years, succeeded in bringing GIA to become the 2nd largest airline in Asia after Japan Airlines and to become the largest and most influential airline in the Southern Hemisphere. Then in 1985, the leadership of the GIA was replaced by RAJ Lumenta.
Then, he re-branded the airline by changing the name from Garuda Indonesian Airways to Garuda Indonesia and moving the main base which was previously located at Kemayoran Airport and Halim Perdanakusuma Airport to Soekarno Hatta and improved the management system and added routes. In 1985, Garuda Indonesia successfully pioneered a flight to the United States with Douglas DC-10-30 with Continental Airlines with a destination of Los Angeles and stopped at Denpasar-Biak-Hawaii using a special logo combined from Continental Airlines and Garuda Indonesia. During the 1990s, Garuda Indonesia rejuvenated its fleet by purchasing a fleet of 9 McDonnell-Douglas MD-11 aircraft that arrived in 1991 to replace the Douglas DC-10 aircraft, which was followed by various Boeing 737 Classic family series which came the following year., as a replacement for the DC-9, as well as the Boeing 747-400 which came in 1994, with a purchase scheme consisting of 2 purchased directly from Boeing, 1 purchased from Varig and Airbus A330-300 which came in 1996. At this time also, Garuda Indonesia experienced two major disasters that occurred in two places that claimed a large number of victims, namely the Garuda Indonesia Flight 865 incident which flew from Fukuoka, Japan, and the other incident occurred on Garuda Indonesia Flight 152 which took place in Sibolangit Village, North Sumatra.. This second disaster killed all of its passengers, besides that, since 1997 the airline was also affected by the Asian Financial Crisis which also made Indonesia's finances sluggish. This makes Garuda have to cut all routes that are not profitable, especially long-distance routes to Europe and America.
In addition to closing unprofitable long-haul routes, the airline is also re-adjusting existing domestic routes, and gradually replacing the number of aging aircraft by selling, transferring and retiring its existing Fokker F28 and Airbus A300 fleets. The deregulation of Indonesian airlines, which is covered by the laws and regulations of Law No. 5/1999 (discussing restrictions on business monopoly practices) and Minister of Transportation Decree No. 11/2001 (discussing the initial operational procedures of airlines with a minimum fleet limit of 2 aircraft), caused Garuda Indonesia to lost its great hegemony in the Indonesian aviation market, which resulted in a decrease in Garuda Indonesia's market share which was empty and used by low-cost airlines such as Pelita Air Service, Awair, Lion Air and Jatayu Airlines. This further exacerbated and cornered Garuda's position which was in a difficult situation. How not, it has been losing money since 1994 and continues to owe without paying, coupled with a very bureaucratic work culture and slow execution, making the existing system "unfriendly to ideas and creativity" which results in the hindrance of Garuda Indonesia's competitive performance with other airlines., not to mention the many officials who take advantage of their relationship with this airline to get their own convenience which has an impact on the low punctuality index which is reflected in the frequent occurrence of flight departure delays.
PT Indonesian Airlines Aviapatria (Indonesian Airlines) was founded in 1999 and started operations in March 2001. In September 1999, it obtained permission from the Indonesian government to perform scheduled flights on 46 routes. The company is owned by individual investors (75%) and Rudy Setyopurnomo (25%), the airline's President Director. Indonesian Airlines ceased operations in 2003. After that its head office was merged with Garuda Indonesia. Rudy Setyopurnomo then worked for the RGM Group, which operates 4 small aircraft. This has not been added to by various new events in other countries, such as the September 11, 2001 attacks based on the Al-Qaeda-style Jihad motif, followed by the Bali Bombings I and Bali Bombings II, the SARS outbreak, and the death of human rights activist Munir. Said Thalib who was (allegedly) poisoned by someone he believed "wanted to silence him" in which the perpetrators of the murder are to this day often associated with the State Intelligence Agency, as well as the Aceh Tsunami Disaster of 26 December 2004. In addition, Garuda Indonesia is also facing flight safety problems, especially After the Garuda Indonesia Flight 200 incident, as a result of this, the European Union issued a letter banning flights to Europe for all Indonesian airlines. However, after a major overhaul, in 2010 the airline was allowed to fly back to Europe, after an inspection mission by the team led by Frederico Grandini who was tasked with ascertaining all possibilities for starting the reopening of the route by recommending the opening of the Jakarta - Amsterdam route. A year later, the airline received the IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) certification from IATA which showed that Garuda Indonesia had met international flight safety standards. Improved service and increased quality of airline services made Garuda the winner of the "World's Most Improved Airline" category from Skytrax.