Exactly one year after the Asian tsunami, Susi Air’s small fleet of Cessna Caravans is continuing to transport aid workers within the ruins of Indonesia’s devastated Aceh province.
Family-owned and managed, Susi Air was set up to fly freshly caught fish from remote villages on the main island of Java for another family business. But after receiving its air operator’s certificate from Indonesian authorities on 28 December 2004, Susi immediately moved its two newly delivered Caravans from Pangandaran on Java to Medan, the main city on Indonesia’s Sumatra island that became the staging ground for relief operations in Aceh just to the north.
“The two Caravans are still operating out of Aceh,” says chief pilot and general manager Christian von Strombeck, a German who moved to Indonesia seven years ago from the USA, where he earned a masters degree in aeronautical engineering and a commercial pilot’s license. “For the foreseeable future we’ll do relief and reconstruction operations in Aceh.”
One of the Caravans is contracted full-time to the Red Cross while the other is chartered by about 10 other non-profit/non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Susi’s Caravans were initially joined by over 20 other fixed- and rotary-wing civilian aircraft brought in by NGOs mainly from overseas, along with military aircraft provided by several foreign countries.
One of the few
Susi was just one of a few Indonesian operators able to respond because most of Indonesia’s small aircraft are permanently tied up on contract work for the gas, oil and mining industries.
Today about 10 aircraft continue to shuttle supplies and construction workers between a similar number of airports in Aceh and Sumatra provinces, where road access remains limited. Half of these aircraft are Indonesia-registered – including Susi’s two Caravans, a Pelita Air de Havilland Canada Dash 7, an AirFast DHC-6 Twin Otter and a GT Air Twin Otter – while the others are chartered from Russian, South African and other foreign operators. Most of Susi’s flights connect Medan, where Strombeck has rented a house for his 10 pilots and office, with the devastated towns of Meulaboh, Nias and Simeulue.
“Initially we flew mostly supplies; but it quickly turned to 50% people and 50% supplies and after a month it turned to mostly people,” says Strombeck. “We had nothing when we started. We came in with our airplanes. We stayed in a hotel the first two weeks and when we saw it would be a long-term thing we rented a house.”
He expects Susi to continue operating in Aceh for at least the next two years while roads are rebuilt. For example, a new road from capital Banda Aceh to Meulaboh will not be completed until 2007. While supplies can now be transported using ship or makeshift roads, workers will still require air transport. “They haven’t even started [with the roads]. That’s why we’re assured of continued business there,” says Strombeck.
Dutch NGO Cordaid, for example, plans to use Susi Air until at least mid-2007 to fly workers and cargo in and out of Simeulue, where it is building 100 school complexes. Simeulue, a remote island off the west coast of Aceh with a population of almost 100,000, lost most of its schools after a second earthquake struck western Sumatra in March. The UN-chartered Dash 7 is flying weekly from Meulaboh to Simeulue, but the space available to NGOs is not sufficient to fully meet Cordaid’s needs. “We can’t fully rely on the UN flight. For the level we have we need one rotation Medan-Simeulue,” says Jacques Larroude, the Medan-based logistics manager for Cordaid. “We need Susi Air. For us it’s vital.”
Cordaid has used Susi Air since May, when reconstruction efforts began throughout Sumatra. From January to April the focus was mainly on emergency aid and supplies ranging from generators to underwear. “It was the strangest cargo I’d ever seen” says Susi Air deputy chief pilot Dan Stewart. “Initially it was relief cargo and people mixed, and a lot of loads were on a standby basis. The Red Cross would just show up and ask: ‘Can you go to Meulaboh?’ They would pay cash and we would take off. We would go without a flight plan. It was just chaotic.”
Stewart says during the first several weeks only 550m (1,800ft) of runway was available at Meulaboh and the apron was closed entirely due to large cracks in the surface. “Planes were parked on the runway and you had to land on top of them or barrel towards them. It was kind of hairy, but it was the only way.”
The Red Cross has used Susi since the tsunami, initially chartering as many as three flights per day “for assessment teams to go left, right and centre,” says the agency’s Banda Aceh-based logistics co-ordinator John Kalhoj. “We basically used them from the beginning.” The Red Cross now uses one of Susi’s Caravans to operate two weekly flights each from Medan to Meulaboh, Nias and Simeulue. “We now follow a weekly schedule,” says Stewart.
Kalhoj says government-owned carriers Merpati and SMAC Airlines operate scheduled regional services on these routes, but the flights are overbooked. Only the main Medan-Banda Aceh route is served by jets, with both flag carrier Garuda and privately owned Adam Air operating Boeing 737s.
Kalhoj expects the Red Cross to be operating in the region for five to 10 more years. “The Red Cross will be here a very long time,” he says, adding that the length of time it needs to use Susi depends on whether scheduled airlines add capacity and if road conditions continue to improve. Some roads have re-opened to NGOs, but the Red Cross prefers to transport delegates and workers by air because it takes more than one day to travel by road between towns in Aceh compared with a one-hour flight.
Strombeck and his Indonesian wife, Susi Pudjiastuti, are just starting to again think about using Susi Air to support their seafood export businesses. Eventually they want to get Susi Air back to doing what it was created for: flying fresh high-value fish from rural fishing villages in Java to Jakarta, where the fish can be transferred to commercial aircraft and flown to Europe and Japan. Susi has already opened five grass airstrips near such villages in anticipation of launching the flights and has identified five to 10 other potential sites for new airfields.
Strombeck has already begun to transport some seafood between Medan and Simeulue, whose mainly agrarian economy was destroyed by the tsunami. But Pudjiastuti’s seafood business in Java continues to rely on ships to transport her goods, which must be frozen for the journey to Jakarta.
Third aircraft
Since launching Susi Air, Strombeck has also discovered there are other potential markets for transport aircraft with short take-off and landing capability. The company has secured a government contract to operate a third Caravan on surveying and logging surveillance missions. The aircraft has already been acquired and delivered and is due to enter service in January.
Strombeck also sees rural air service obligations fuelling demand for more small regional aircraft as Merpati downsizes. Susi is talking to several local governments about setting up subsidised scheduled services using Caravans and Pilatus PC-6 Porters. Strombeck envisions using the latter to transport passengers and cargo into some of the 300 airfields in Indonesia that are too small to accommodate a Caravan.
But difficulty finding fuding for the purchase of additional Caravans and several PC-6s is blocking Susi’s expansion. Foreign banks will not finance Indonesian-registered aircraft, while domestic banks have no experience in the market. “We’re positive we need the aircraft,” says Strombeck, “the problem in Indonesia is always financing.”
He says the local bank that financed Susi Air’s first two Caravans will not back any additional transactions. Because of this the third Caravan was purchased with cash, but Susi Air does not have the resources to do this again. So for now the focus remains on Aceh.
BRENDAN SOBIE/SINGAPORE
Source: Flight International
