Jakarta, CNN Indonesia —
Like the saying, the fate of PT Garuda Indonesia (Persero) Tbk can now be said to be ‘don’t hesitate to die, don’t even want to live’. The reason, performance and financial airline The national team is really stumbling and is on the brink.
Special Staff to the Minister of SOEs, Arya Sinulingga, said that Garuda’s current bad condition was due to mismanagement and previous management. In the past, it was too easy for the company to sign an airplane lease agreement.
As a result, operational costs become inefficient, while income is also not significantly high and debt arises everywhere. In fact, income is increasingly ‘parachuting’ when the COVID-19 pandemic is endemic in Indonesia and the policy of restricting people’s mobility must inevitably be implemented.
“We know Garuda’s condition is like this because in the past it was reckless flight rentals carried out by Garuda and this recklessness is what made Garuda’s condition even worse with the current corona condition,” said Arya to the media crew, Monday (25/05/2020). 10).
This pathetic condition made the government try to rack its brains to save Garuda. One of them is carried out by restructuring steps through negotiating debt payments to creditors (lessor).
If this is successful, the government believes that Garuda can be maintained. Moreover, the restrictions on mobility are slowly being relaxed, so that Garuda can fly again and catch money.
The problem is, not all parties can wait for Garuda to recover by itself. Evidently, several parties have now filed a lawsuit for the Suspension of Debt Payment Obligations (PKPU) to the state-owned company.
Other rescue issues began to emerge to the public, namely replacing Garuda with PT Pelita Air Service (PAS), an airline charter which was originally initiated by PT Pertamina (Persero). Unfortunately, the government has not yet opened its voice in full regarding this plan.
“About the option regarding Pelita, that will be later,” added Arya.
BUMN observer from the University of Indonesia Toto Pranoto agrees that Garuda’s current condition is indeed a dilemma. On the one hand, there is actually a prospect of increasing business for airlines in line with the easing of the PPKM policy.
“There is an estimate demand which increases due to looser mobility. Especially, captive market Hajj or Umrah transportation will be reopened as well,” said Toto CNNIndonesia.com.
But indeed, not all creditors can wait. The problem is, when negotiations with creditors fail or continue to reach a ‘dead end’, the government’s ability to save the historic Indonesian airline is getting less and less.
This is because the company’s debt has accumulated a lot, around Rp. 70 trillion until the first semester of 2021, although around Rp. 12.8 trillion of which has received debt relief from 11 creditors.
Meanwhile, the financial performance was still ‘boncos’, where the company posted a loss of US$ 898.65 million or equivalent to Rp. 12.8 trillion (exchange rate of Rp. 14,250 per US dollar) in the same period.
In fact, continued Toto, the poor financial performance of the GIAA-coded issuer has made the government through PT Sarana Multi Infrastruktur (Persero) aka SMI unable to provide bailout funds in the context of national economic recovery (PEN) to the BUMN.
This is also the focus of aviation observer Alvin Lie. According to him, Garuda’s debt is already too high, so it’s not surprising that one by one PKPU lawsuits have been floated from creditors in court.
“The business calculations are too heavy. Of course it is much cheaper to build new airlines or develop them.” airlines others, which are currently smaller in scale, but are financially sound,” said Alvin.
This is also suspected to be the reason for the government’s failure to provide state funds to Garuda, whether in the form of a PEN bailout or an injection of state capital participation (PMN) in the context of debt restructuring. Moreover, said Alvin, President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) has given a signal that he wants to close SOEs that continue to lose money.
“President Jokowi’s statement can be interpreted by interested parties that the government will tend to let go and let Garuda go bankrupt and close,” he said.
INDEF economist Tauhid Ahmad shares this view. In fact, according to him, the option of closing airlines on the grounds of bankruptcy has occurred in many countries.
“It’s easier for new airlines, many countries have bankrupted their airlines, even though Garuda may be a bit different because it’s not a private company, but a government and historic airline,” said Tauhid.
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