As it strives to hack down its USD9.8 billion debt pile to about USD3.7 billion as part of its ongoing court-led restructuring process, troubled flag carrier Garuda Indonesia (GA, Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta) aims to cancel billions of dollars worth of orders from Airbus and Boeing, executives at the airline have said.
The state-owned carrier wants to axe outstanding deliveries it has on the books for thirteen A330 widebodies (nine A330-900N and four A330-800N, the ch-aviation Commercial Aviation Aircraft Data module shows), the airline's finance director Prasetio said following a meeting with creditors in Jakarta on March 1. The order would be worth more than USD1 billion, according to a Bloomberg News report citing aviation consulting firm Avitas.
Garuda Indonesia is also making use of the restructuring process to continue to press Boeing into agreeing to the cancellation of the remaining forty-nine B737-8 MAX jets it has on order, Prasetio reportedly said.
Garuda revealed back in April 2019 that it had spoken to the US manufacturer about converting the remainder of this order - it has taken delivery of only one of the type - into other models such as B737-10s or B787s, or cancelling the deal outright. Yet the contract still stands. The 50-strong order was placed in 2014 and was valued at USD4.9 billion at the time.
Separately, Garuda Indonesia CEO Irfan Setiaputra confirmed to Reuters that the carrier was renegotiating the terms its Airbus and Boeing deals, with cancellation being among the options. The airline has no need of the aircraft in the short term, he explained.
“Hopefully we can get a win-win solution,” he said.
Boeing did not immediately respond to ch-aviation’s request for comment and Airbus declined to comment.
