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.