Sriwijaya Air is known to have had an intimate relationship with a government-owned airline, namely the Garuda Indonesia Group, which is associated with joint operations (KSO).
At that time in November 2018, Sriwijaya Air was said to have a number of payment obligations to Garuda through its subsidiary PT Garuda Maintenance Facility AeroAsia Tbk. (GMF) related to aircraft maintenance.
Sriwijaya said that the company’s strategic step at that time was to ensure that operational activities could run smoothly. Meanwhile, Garuda acknowledges that the partnership is an effort made by the company to ensure Sriwijaya Air can fulfill its obligations.
Not only Sriwijaya Air, PT Nam Air, which is one of Sriwijaya’s business lines, is also included in the KSO scheme of both parties.
On its way, on September 24, 2019 GMF began removing engines and several properties from the Sriwijaya airframe, and stopped aircraft maintenance services in the aftermath of unfulfilled unfulfilled costs. The GMF stance is contained in a letter numbered GMf / DB-2070/19.
Not long ago, on October 1, 2019 Sriwijaya and Garuda agreed to reconcile and resume operational cooperation with a renewal of the agreement agreed upon by both parties.
Then, the split between the two domestic airlines appeared again. On November 7, 2020, news spread that Sriwijaya and Garuda had broken up partnerships (again).
Based on information compiled by the editorial team, the rift between the two national airlines originated from the party that was the lessor of the Sriwijaya aircraft.
Garuda explained that the cooperation with the airline owned by the Chandra Lie family was only a business-to-business scheme. Meanwhile, Sriwijaya’s obligations with the lessor are entirely the responsibility of the company and are not part of Garuda’s interests.
Garuda is said to be only trying to secure state assets and receivables attached to Sriwijaya.
As previously reported, Sriwijaya Air’s debt problems slowly began to emerge after the second ‘divorce’ from the state-owned company.
In early 2020, Sriwijaya Air began to open up to the company’s financial condition. The airline, which began operating in 2003, confirmed that Sriwijaya currently owns several parties.
Sriwijaya Air Group’s Managing Director Jefferson I. Jauwena said that the information related to the company’s debt currently circulating in the public is a one-sided claim by the debtor.
“For that we need to ensure by appointing an independent auditor whether the debt being collected is reasonable or not,” he said during a press conference in Jakarta, January 20, 2020.
Meanwhile, information regarding the value of Sriwijaya Air’s obligations, which is currently known, amounted to IDR2.02 trillion in 2019. This figure consists of arrears to GMF of IDR616 billion, Pertamina IDR846 billion, and PT Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI) IDR563 billion.
