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ew domestic full-service carrier Pacific Royale Airways, which made its debut in June this year, has announced that it would temporarily be halting its operations.

Sales manager Dede Hartono said the airline was currently restructuring its business plan before it
returned to the sky.

“We need to temporarily cease our operations as we will be changing Pacific Royale’s whole business plan. This is the best option in order to deliver more benefits to the company and, most importantly, to our customers,” Dede told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

He did not elaborate on how the business plan would be altered.

He said the company had stopped operations early in October.

He emphasized, however, that financial difficulties were not behind the halt.

“No, it is not [financial problems]. It is more to do with the fact that we are facing a dearth of crew members and pilots. In addition, we do not fly routes that carry a lot of passengers as we intend to create a new market in the [aviation] industry,” he said.

As of early October, Pacific Royale operated three Fokker 50 twin turboprop aircraft, which served several routes from its hubs in Batam, Riau Islands and Surabaya, East Java.

Among the airline’s routes were Batam–Padang, Batam–Jambi, Surabaya–Pangkalan Bun and Surabaya–Semarang–Bandung. Pacific Royale has transported around 15,000 to 20,000 passengers on those routes during its three months of operation.

According to its former business plan, Pacific Royale planned to use five F-50s for feeder routes, and four Airbus 320 single-aisle aircraft and one Airbus 330 wide-body airplane for domestic and international flights.

“There is a chance that we will change the aircraft that we use in the new business plan,” he added.

He confirmed, however, that the airline planned to remain a full-service carrier.

Contacted separately, Transportation Ministry spokesman Bambang S. Ervan said the ministry would revoke the airline’s route permit if it failed to be back in business by the end of October.

“We recently summoned the airline’s representatives and warned them that we would revoke their route permit if they don’t fly for 30 consecutive days,” Bambang told the Post.

In addition, he said the regulator would be quick to freeze Pacific Royale Airways’ flight permit (SIUAU) if the carrier stopped operations for one year.

The company has been given rights to operate 62 domestic routes and 11 international routes, according to its SIUAU.

He said the ministry planned to summon the operator for a second time this month to get more details about its new business plan.

Chairman of the Indonesian National Air Carrier Association’s (Inaca) scheduled flights division,
Syafril Nasution, said the body would submit recommendations to Pacific Royale before it resumed operations.

“We will also talk to other operators to help transport Pacific Royale passengers who may have booked flights before the carrier halted its operations,” Syafril said.

Pacific Royale Airways is 51 percent owned by local businessman Gunarni Gunawan, and 49 percent owned by Indian investor Tarun Trika.