T

he flights of ailing state-owned Merpati Nusantara Airline across the archipelago returned to normal on Sunday, after state oil and gas firm PT Pertamina had stopped supplying aviation fuel (avtur) to the ailing airline on Saturday.

“We are operating normally today as there are no more stoppages of fuel from Pertamina,” Merpati president director Sardjono Jhony told The Jakarta Post over the phone on Sunday.

Pertamina stopped fueling the airline on Saturday at Juanda International Airport in Surabaya, East Java, and at Sultan Hasanuddin International Airport in Makassar, South Sulawesi, disrupting the airline’s schedules, especially in eastern Indonesia.

Merpati is known for flying to remote destinations as pioneer flights.

Based on Pertamina data, the airline is in arrears of Rp 270 billion (US$30.52 million).

He said that Merpati returned to business normally at around 3 p.m. on Sunday after meeting with officials from the State-Owned Enterprises Ministry.

Merpati has promised to settle its fuel debt after state management asset firm PT Perusahaan Pengelola Aset (PT PPA) guaranteed its finances with a restructuring fund worth Rp 561 billion.

However, Sardjono refused to comment immediately on when the PT PPA would disburse the much-needed funds to help Merpati.

Meanwhile, Sumaryanto Widayatin, the State-Owned Enterprises deputy minister for logistics and infrastructure, said that the ministry would make sure the airline receives the funds immediately.

“We are working on this and everything will be settled immediately because the Rp 561 billion fund has been agreed upon in the revised 2011 state budget,” Sumaryanto told the Post over the phone on Sunday.

He said he was dissapointed with Pertamina’s decision to stopping supplying avtur on Saturday morning.

“Such a thing should not happen again,” he said.

In a separate interview, Perta-mina spokesman Mochamad Harun said that the company had launched the fuel embargo against Merpati because the airline had not tried to repay its debt by installments.

“We do not want Merpati’s inefficiency to affect us. We are not a subsidy institution,” he told the Post by telephone on Saturday.

He added that Pertamina had suffered from the debt of PT Trans Pacific Petrochemical Indotama (PT TPPI) to the tune of $375 million.

PT TPPI operates an integrated petrochemical refinery in Tanjung Awar-awar, Tuban, East Java.

Breaking the figures down, Hasan said that the airline’s long-standing debt amounted to Rp 212 billion in the first phase, an accumulation of fuel debt during 2006 and 2007.

In the second phase, the airline totaled a debt of Rp 44.2 billion and $700,000 from receiving fuel supplies from Pertamina after 2007.

In total, the debt that must be paid is Rp 256.78 billion and $700,000, excluding fines and interests, Harun said.

“Based on our data, that amount [Rp 256.78 billion and $700,000] is not included with the airline’s current debt which, as of Friday, totaled Rp 3.83 billion plus the fuel supply for Saturday and Sunday,” he said.

Meanwhile, the State-Owned Enterprises Workers Union Bersatu scolded Pertamina’s action against Merpati.

“Pertamina’s action toward Merpati is very ironic, considering both companies are state-owned enterprises,” Bersatu chairman Arif Poyuono said in a statement Saturday.

“It is different to their [Pertamina’s] treatment of TPPI, which has a debt of trillions of rupiah; although TPPI never repays the debt, they keep on receiving raw material from Pertamina,” he added. (nfo)

—JP/ Rangga D. Fadillah