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Garuda to ditch jet orders amid concerns

Grounded: A technician prepares to check a Garuda Indonesia Boeing 737 MAX 8 airplane parked at the Garuda Maintenance Facility AeroAsia at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport on March 13

The Jakarta Post
Jakarta
Sat, March 23, 2019

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Garuda to ditch jet orders amid concerns

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rounded: A technician prepares to check a Garuda Indonesia Boeing 737 MAX 8 airplane parked at the Garuda Maintenance Facility AeroAsia at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport on March 13.(Reuters/Willy Kurniawan)

National flag carrier Garuda has informed United States aerospace giant Boeing that it will cancel its order for 49 Boeing 737 MAX 8 jets following two deadly crashes involving the aircraft.

The order was worth US$4.9 billion at list prices when the type was announced in 2014, Garuda president director I Gusti Ngurah Askhara Danadiputra, also known as Ari Askhara, told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

Garuda spokesperson Ikhsan Rosan told the Post on Friday that the company sent a letter to Boeing on March 14 requesting to cancel its order for 49 Boeing 737 MAX 8 jets.

Ikhsan said Garuda made the business decision to ensure passenger confidence in flying with the carrier.

“Since the accidents, passenger trust in the MAX 8 has weakened,” he said.

“It won’t be good for Garuda to use MAX 8 jets, which people have been avoiding, as it can affect the company.”

On March 10, an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 carrying 149 passengers and eight crew members crashed en route from Addis Ababa to Nairobi, killing all onboard.

The tragedy came not long after the Indonesian Lion Air flight JT610, which used the same jet type, crashed into the Java Sea in late October last year, killing all 189 people onboard.

Ikhsan said that Boeing officials would travel to Indonesia for negotiations with the carrier on March 28 following the latter’s request.

Ikhsan said Garuda had received one of the 50 aircraft it had ordered, which had been grounded since March 11 under the instructions of the Transportation Ministry after the second crash involving the MAX 8 in Ethiopia.

Ari confirmed that Garuda had paid Boeing $26 million for pre-delivery payments (PDP).

“We have paid the PDP and it [refund considerations] will be part of our negotiation. The decision won’t come out fast but rather in stages,” Ikhsan said.

“Whether we will return the one plane we have received will also be part of the negotiation,” he added, citing that the carrier had not found any fault in the operation of the grounded plane, which previously served flights to Singapore and Hong Kong.

He said the carrier would also talk about switching to other aircraft models during its negotiation with Boeing.

Garuda is the first carrier to announce plans of cancelling its order for Boeing 737 MAX 8 jets amid global scrutiny of the aircraft after the two fatal accidents.

Both accidents reportedly bore several similarities, such as erratic steep climbs and descents with fluctuating airspeeds before crashing shortly after takeoff, despite clear weather.

Considering the two deadly crashes, former Indonesian Air Force chief of staff and aviation observer Chappy Hakim said Garuda’s order cancellation was the right decision.

He said although the investigations into the accidents were ongoing, investigator analysis, including that by the National Transportation Safety Committee, indicated that there might have been some fault in the aircraft, which still needs to be proven.

Investigators have probed the antistalling system in the plane, which is designed to point the aircraft’s nose downward if it is under threat of stalling.

Chappy said such cases were unprecedented even though faults in new aircraft were a normal occurrence that could help plane manufacturers improve their products.

He said the cases had not only brought Boeing’s credibility into question, but also the US Federal Aviation Administration’s, which had become lenient on its safety certification system in the past two decades.

Lion Air postponed the delivery of its four MAX 8 jets after the Ethiopian Airlines crash. It previously operated 11 jets of the type. (ars)

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