Garuda Indonesia recives new jets

JAKARTA (JP): The national flag carrier Garuda Indonesia will receive the newest edition to its fleet, the Airbus A-330-300 jet, at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport today.

Garuda will operate the twin-engined A-330-300 jet, which currently costs about US$125 million, on several regional routes to Hong Kong, Taipei, Japan, Guangzhou and Australia.

The jet is one of nine ordered by Garuda seven years ago. The leasing contract for the jet purchase was signed in Singapore last March.

Garuda also received another new jet, the McDonnell Douglas MD-11ER aircraft, yesterday in California, the United States.

The MD-11ER will serve long-haul flights from Jakarta to European cities directly.

"The plane will also be able to fly from Jakarta to Los Angeles without stopping over in Honolulu," Garuda's operation director, Dharmadi, said in California.

Garuda, which also operates three Boeing 747-400s to serve Paris, will receive two more MD-11ERs in May and September next year, Antara news agency quoted Dharmadi as saying.

Airbus Industrie is a European consortium controlled by Aerospatiale of France, British Aerospace of Britain, Daimler- Benz Aerospace of Germany and CASA of Spain. McDonnell Douglas, a leading aircraft company in the U.S., merged last week with Boeing, another U.S. aviation enterprise, to create the world's largest aerospace company. (icn)