TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - PT Merpati Nusantara Airlines (MNA) President Director Asep Ekanugraha publically announced its intention to reestablish the airliner’s operations in 2019 after a hiatus since 2013.
“We are well-assured and optimistic that we would operate again next year. The commitment, preparation, especially operational costs have been obtained,” said Asep in a written statement Tempo received today.
Furthermore, Asep suggested that Merpati’s operations will heavily depend on the decision of the Surabaya Commercial Court has extended the debt postponement petition (PKPU) upon dealing with a number of recommendations from creditors related to the effort to seek a solution for the airline’s debt of Rp10.95 trillion (USD720.39 million).
According to Asep, one of the strategies that will be practiced by the government to revive MErpati’s operations is through debt restructure, on which he said that the company has received an investor’s commitment fee of Rp6.4 trillion from a domestic insurance-affiliated company, Intra Asia Corpora.
“We do hope that Merpati would be granted the chance to operate its business again. If granted, then we will step on the gas upon implementing the operational strategic steps that we prepared beforehand,” Asep said.
DIAS PRASONGKO
