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)