JAKARTA: More than 90 percent of national flag carrier PT Garuda Indonesia's maintenance workers have agreed to be transferred to a subsidiary the airline plans to set up, the airline said in a press release on Wednesday.

As of Wednesday, 2,490, or 90.6 percent, of the total 2,750 technicians working in the firm's maintenance unit had agreed to join PT Garuda Maintenance Facility Aero-Asia (GMF-AA), while the remaining 260 technicians had yet to make up their minds, the airline said.

The deadline for the remaining technicians to decide was Aug. 7.

As a part of the government's 2002 - 20003 public sector master plan, Garuda is seeking to concentrate on core flight services, and as a result will spin off its non-core business units, including the maintenance unit.

Garuda has thus been trying to persuade its maintenance workers to move to GMF-AA, which it set up in 2002.

However, some of the technicians have been refusing to be transferred for months arguing that GMF-AA was a new company that lacked clear plans and strategies. -JP