Garuda Indonesia has had a far-reaching management shake-out resulting in the appointment of a new board and management team, including a new chief executive who is already making changes.
Indonesia's government has replaced the entire 13-member board of Garuda Indonesia and installed Emirsyah Satar as president and chief executive and Abdulgani as chairman.
Satar, who replaces Indra Setiawan, is a former executive vice-president of finance at Garuda who left the national carrier in 2003 to become deputy chairman of Bank Danamon, while Abdulgani was Garuda's president and chief executive from 1998 to early 2002, but more recently has worked elsewhere.
Garuda says one reason the government opted for Satar is because he has already worked for the national carrier and has financial expertise, an area where Garuda has problems because it is in debt and must pay millions of dollars each year to cover the interest on its loans.
Garuda, and in particular its domestic carrier Garuda Citilink, which operates four Boeing 737-300s, also faces increased competition from the plethora of privately owned Indonesian carriers that have been launched. According to some executives at Citilink the new boss at Garuda plans to change Citilink's role within the group.
"We are currently a brand unit of Garuda, but Emirsyah Satar plans to make Citilink a strategic business unit [in the next few months] before spinning it off to become a [separate] subsidiary of Garuda Indonesia" at the end of this year or early next year, says a source at Citilink.
The source also says that Karin Inkan Item, a project director at Citilink, has just replaced Chairul Achadiat as head of Citilink and that in future the head of Citilink will report directly to Satar, whereas previously they reported to Garuda's executive vice-president of commercial.
Citilink is expected to increase its 737-300 fleet this year by three aircraft to seven through additional leases.
LEITHEN FRANCIS/SINGAPORE
Source: Flight International
