Sumatra Utara Airlines grounded

Sumatra Utara Airlines grounded

Apriadi Gunawan, The Jakarta Post, Medan

The newly-launched Sutra Airlines, owned by the province of North
Sumatra, stopped operation for the time being as it failed to get
an aircraft-leasing agreement with an affiliate of a Malaysian
company, PT Rabin Global Air Servindo.

Provincial administration spokesman Eddy Sofyan said here on
Thursday that PT Rabin stopped leasing its 40-seater Fokker-27
plane on the grounds that its president and vice president never
knew about the business.

"In the beginning, we were very surprised with Rabin's
decision, but then we understood the situation after they said
that the middleman from the provincial administration had made a
deal with errant officials from PT Rabin," he told The Jakarta
Post.

Eddy, however, declined to identify the middleman. He said
that the company's vice president would discuss the problem with
North Sumatra Governor T. Rizal Nurdin next week.

The establishment of Sutra Airlines was based on an agreement
between the provincial administration with seven regencies in the
province's west coast, which later became its shareholders.

They are Central, North and South Tapanuli regencies,
Mandailing Natal, Padang Sidempuan, Nias and Sibolga regencies.
Each of them had committed to investing Rp 3.5 billion per year
for the next two years to support the new airline's operation.

The airline commenced its operations on Oct. 7, with two
flights everyday plying a single route from Ferdinand Lumban
Tobing airport in Sibolga, Central Tapanuli, to Medan, the
province's capital.

The airlines aims at providing local businesspeople access to
remote and isolated west coast areas in the province.

Because of the stoppage of its operation, Eddy said that the
airlines would return Rp 200 million of fund it had used up to
its stakeholders. He said that the airlines would get the money
from the current ticket sales.

Ministry of Transportation Agum Gumelar said earlier that
Sutra Airlines had not been registered as one of operating
scheduled airlines companies in the country.

According to Law No. 15/1992 on Air Transportation, an
aircraft flying from or into the country should have a license
issued by the government. A violation of this law carries a
maximum jail term of five years and a fine of Rp 60 million.

Eddy said that the operation suspension was not because of the
absence of demand or of an operating license from the ministry of
transportation, but purely the problem with PT Rabin.

North Sumatra-based social analyst Wara Sinuhaji said that the
governor and the seven stakeholders of Sutra Airlines should be
held responsible for the failure.

He said that those shareholders established the airlines
hastily without doing an in-depth analysis to its feasibility
study.

"They (the stakeholders) should have made a reliable survey on
the flight route or on the reliability of PT Rabin Global as the
lessor of the aircraft," Wara said.