Transport Ministry Wants Sriwijaya Air to Work With AP II, Garuda
Jakarta. Sriwijaya Air is reconsidering a plan to build its own maintenance, repair and overhaul facilities at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport following a request from the Ministry of Transportation, a top executive said on Thursday (23/03).
Sriwijaya Air has been planning to build its own maintenance facilities at Soekarno-Hatta airport and at the upcoming Bintan International Airport in Riau Islands Province since last year.
During a discussion with Transportation Ministry representatives however, Sriwijaya Maintenance Facility (SMF) was asked to consider building its facilities in conjunction with state-owned airport operator Angkasa Pura II and Garuda Maintenance Facility AeroAsia, a unit of the national flag carrier.
"We've been asked to work with Angkasa Pura II and GMF AeroAsia," said Richard Budihadianto, SMF president director and chief executive. "We are looking into the details of the proposed arrangement."
Richard said Sriwijaya has not yet responded to the Transportation Ministry's request and that the three companies cited in the arrangement still have to discuss the plan in detail.
"We haven't answered yet [...] We are evaluating whether the cooperation matches our strategy," he said, noting that the company is ready to scrap plans to build its maintenance facilities at Soekarno-Hatta airport if the company concludes that the proposed arrangement does not provide adequate benefits.
Despite uncertainty over the planned cooperation to build at Soekarno-Hatta airport, Sriwijaya is moving ahead with another plan to construct a $200 million maintenance facility at Bintan airport, with work scheduled to begin by the middle of this year.
SMF signed a memorandum of understanding last week with Bintan Aviation Investments, a subsidiary of Singapore-based firm Gallant Venture, which is developing the airport in Bintan. Gallant expects construction to be completed in 2018.
"We will start building our MRO [maintenance, repair and overhaul] facilities at Bintan when there is certainty from [Gallant] that construction on the airport has concluded," Richard said.
Tags: Keywords: