Gatari Air plans to expand overseas

Gatari Air plans to expand overseas

JAKARTA (JP): Despite complaints over its pilot employment
system, private charter airlines PT Gatari Air Service plans to
expand its business to foreign countries.

Company president Eddy Pramono told The Jakarta Post over the
weekend that Gatari had set short, medium and long-term targets
for its expansion plan.

"In the short term, we are improving the company's efficiency.
In medium terms, we are looking for projects with the prospective
Busang gold mining, Natuna gas exploration, the Timor gap and
Irian Jaya oil explorations," he said.

He said that in the medium term, Gatari would also look for
overseas projects not necessarily in neighboring countries, but
also in Africa, the former Soviet Union, the Middle East and
Indochina.

In the long term, Gatari planned to start air cargo services,
he said.

Pramono denied his company was having trouble over its system
of hiring pilots and with its current contracts.

Company production director, Iwan Paul JT, said Gatari applied
a rigid three-step test before employing Indonesian or expatriate
pilots.

"Gatari has always signed contracts offering its customers
exclusivity. The customer also has the right to choose qualified
pilots with certain records and ratings."

He said that based on such a scheme, aircraft chartering was a
highly demanding market.

"Based on the exclusive-use contract, customers have the right
to terminate and extend the contract at anytime at their
convenience," he said.

A pilot recruited by Gatari said that the company was in the
process of terminating the employment contracts of some
expatriate pilots.

An Australian pilot left recently after he was told he was no
longer needed. The source said the reason the company was getting
rid of staff was because its contract with oil and gas explorer
Conoco Indonesia Inc. had been terminated.

Conoco, affiliated with the U.S. chemical giant DuPont Co.,
conducts oil exploration in Riau and Irian Jaya.

The source said pilots had frequently complained of poor
safety standards and of particular concern was the lack of spare
parts for routine maintenance.

Gatari's operation manager, Capt. Maryono, and training
manager, Almirul Bawono, reiterated that the company's planes
underwent routine maintenance.

"Helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft are being maintained
regularly at our own maintenance facility, or at other facilities
in Singapore, Australia, the United States or New Zealand,
depending on the type of plane," said Titik W. Poedjoko, Gatari's
director of general affairs and finance.

Gatari, set up in 1983, is one of the largest private air
charter operators in Southeast Asia, offering a wide range of
helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. The company mostly charters
aircraft for oil and forest exploitation.

The company is 78.8 percent owned by PT Humpuss, a private
firm controlled by President Soeharto's youngest son Hutomo
Mandala Putra, 19.7 percent by Mohamad (Bob) Hasan, one of
Soeharto's closest cronies. Gatari's remaining shares are owned
by five cooperatives.

The company gained in December 1995 an international
certificate of ISO 9001 standardization for its design and for
good air services from Det Norske Veritas of the Netherlands. At
the time Gatari was the first aircraft chartering company in Asia
to be award such a certificate.

Gatari, with its 43 aircraft consisting of 16 fixed-wing
aircraft and 27 helicopters, deals mostly at home, serving oil
and mining companies such as Enterprise, Maxus, Fina, Shell,
Unocal, Trend and Freeport. (icn)