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itilink, the budget division of national flag carrier Garuda Indonesia, has to wait a few months more to become an independent company after the government decided to postpone its spin-off plan.

Transportation Ministry spokesman Bambang Ervan said in Jakarta on Tuesday that the spin-off could not be approved this month as originally scheduled because Citilink still did not have enough personnel to operate as a separate company.

He said that besides overcoming the shortage of staff, Citilink should also conduct an aircraft test that may take a few months to be able to operate independently as a separate airline company.

Citilink is supposed to separate from Garuda Indonesia this month and become PT Citilink Indonesia.

In a separate interview, Garuda Indonesia finance director Elisa Lumbantoruan said that the firm overcame staffing challenges last week at Citilink.

“Vacant positions have been filled since last week. We do not have a shortage of staff,” he told the Jakarta Post.

In addition, he said that the spin-off was postponed because Garuda Indonesia is renewing its IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA), an internationally recognized certificate on safety and accepted evaluation systems designed to assess the operational management and control systems of an airline.

As an IOSA-registered operator, Garuda has to renew its certificate every two years. “When we renew this certificate, we cannot change the structure of our company,” he said.

However, he said that Garuda was going to get its IOSA certificate by the end of this month, allowing it to speed up the spin-off process of Citilink.

He was optimistic that the final approval of the spin-off plan would be issued a few weeks after Garuda got its IOSA.

Currently, Citilink serves nine domestic routes including Jakarta–Banjarmasin, Jakarta–Denpasar, Jakarta–Medan, Jakarta–Surabaya and Surabaya–Makassar.

With more aircraft, the airline could add more flights to its existing routes and open new routes, Elisa said.

It plans to increase the number of Jakarta–Surabaya flights from seven to nine per day, and Jakarta–Denpasar flights from two to five per day, and expects to fly 4 million passengers this year, a 150 percent increase from 1.6 million passengers in 2011.

Currently, the airline operates 11 aircraft: one B737-300, five B737-400s and five A320s, but the B737-300 will be decommissioned later this year. (nfo)