Bimantara eyes Garuda's A300-B4 aircraft
Bimantara eyes Garuda's A300-B4 aircraft
JAKARTA (JP): The Bimantara Group, one of the country's leading conglomerates, has proposed buying nine idle Airbus A300- B4 aircraft from Garuda Indonesia and leasing them back to the national airlines.
Director General of Air Transportation Zainuddin Sikado told reporters here yesterday that one of Bimantara's subsidiaries had set up a consortium with other private firms to buy the aging jets.
"The proposed deal is quite similar to the previous one whereby a consortium of private companies bought eight Fokker F- 28s from Garuda and leased them to Garuda's subsidiary, Merpati Nusantara Airlines," he said.
Sikado was speaking to reporters during a break at a hearing between Minister of Transportation Haryanto Dhanutirto and Commission V of the House of Representatives.
A consortium consisting of PT Arthaska Nusaphala, PT Sakanusa Dirgantara and KFS Aviation Inc. of Japan, recently bought the eight Fokker-28s at US$2.7 million a unit under a three-way deal that included the leasing of the aircraft to Merpati for seven years.
The consortium will first overhaul the Fokker-28s at the Merpati maintenance center in Surabaya before they are leased to Merpati at $950 per hour.
Sikado said there were several bidders for the nine A300-B4s offering prices of between US$40 million and $43 million for all.
But he declined to mention the other bidders. Neither was he willing to disclose the bidding price offered by the Bimantara- led consortium.
Minister Haryanto earlier said that Garuda which badly needed fresh funds to improve its liquidity had offered the aging A300- B4 aircraft at between $9 million and $11 million a unit.
"We are still looking for the highest bidder willing and able to pay cash," he said.
New routes
In the hearing, Haryanto told the Commission, which deals with telecommunications, tourism, transportation, public housing and public works, that the government has concluded a new air agreement with Brunei.
"We agreed to link seven more cities, those being Ujungpandang of South Sulawesi, Surabaya of East Java, Batam and Pekanbaru of Riau, Medan of North Sumatra, Palembang of South Sumatra and Padang of West Sumatra, to Brunei with three flights per week," he said.
In addition, he said, the Jakarta-Bandar Seri Begawan and Denpasar-Bandar Seri Begawan services will gradually be increased from three times to seven times per week in a series of steps up to 1996.
Haryanto added that the bilateral air agreement with Taiwan had also been renewed, whereby Jakarta-Taipei flights will be doubled to 16 times per week starting in April this year. The flights will be further expanded to 20 times per week by April 1996.
The new agreement also includes other services linking Manado, North Sulawesi and Surabaya with Taipei and Kaoh Shiung beginning in April with eight flights per week and 12 times per week by April 1996.
"Another highly promising route between Taiwan and Canada will be discussed later," he said.
He said that Indonesia would also negotiate bilateral air agreements with Qatar, Uzbekistan, Belgium, Ukraine, Slovak, Suriname, Venezuela and South Africa. (icn)