Merpati Nusantara Airlines


PT Merpati Nusantara Airlines, operating as Merpati Nusantara Airlines, was an airline in Indonesia based in Central Jakarta, Jakarta. It operated scheduled domestic services to more than 25 destinations in Indonesia, as well as scheduled international services to East Timor and Malaysia. The word merpati is Indonesian for "dove", and Nusantara is a Javanese word found in the Pararaton meaning "the outer islands", referring to the Indonesian archipelago. The airline was based at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Jakarta. It also maintained both a maintenance and simulator facility at Juanda International Airport, Surabaya. The Merpati Training Centre at Surabaya housed Fokker F-27, AVIC MA60 and CN-235 full motion simulators.
All services were suspended in 2014 due to financial and regulatory issues.

History

The airline was established and started operations on 6 September 1962. It was set up by the Indonesian government as the second state airline, with the main objective of taking over the network of domestic services developed by the Air Force since 1958. During 1962, it also took over the routes in West Irian previously operated by KLM subsidiary, De Kroonduif, which had been flown by Garuda since 1962.
With a start up capital of 10 million rupiah, Merpati began operations in Kalimantan, using a fleet of four de Havilland Otter/DHC-3s and two DC-3 Dakotas provided by the Indonesian Air Force. Pilots and technicians were supplied by the Indonesian Air Force, Garuda Indonesia Airways and other civil aviation companies. Its mission, defined by the government, was to become an 'air bridge' linking remote areas of Indonesia and thereby helping to build the economies of such regional areas. The air bridge theme is the basis of the current Merpati logo, displayed on the tails of its aircraft.
The first Managing Director appointed was Air Commodore Sutoyo Adiputro Henk who had an initial staff of 17 people. In 1963, the airline expanded its routes to include Jakarta - Tanjung Karang, Jakarta - Semarang, and Jakarta - Balikpapan. In 1964, the airline took over operations from NV de Kroonduif Garuda, increasing its aircraft fleet to 12. With the addition of three DC-3 Dakotas, two DHC-6 Twin Otters and 1 DHC-2 Beaver, Merpati began to grow, with operations now reaching Sumatra, Papua and Nusa Tenggara Barat. Further expansion saw the addition of more aircraft, including three Dornier DO-28s and six Pilatus Porter PC-6s, and staff numbers growing to 583 people.
In October 1978, the airline was taken over by Garuda, but continued to operate under its own name. Merpati was integrated into the Garuda Indonesia Group in September 1989, but was granted government permission to separate in 1993, although the split did not actually take place until April 1997. The airline was jointly owned by the Indonesian Government and Garuda Indonesia.
In June 2011, the Merpati commercial director stated that the airline was opening a tender for 15 jet airliners, including 40 aircraft with a capacity of 50 passengers and 20 additional aircraft carrying 20 passengers, such as the MA-60, the NC-212 or DHC-6 Twin Otter. The following month, with the airline suffering from financial difficulties, the government and the legislature agreed to provide a capital injection of Rp.516 billion to Merpati Nusantara Airlines in the 2012 state budget.
In February 2014, due to the airline's inability to pay its employees salary or benefits for three consecutive months, many pilots and cabin crew resigned. The same month, Merpati suspended all services due to cashflow problems, including an inability to obtain fuel on credit, obliging the company to pay cash. On 24 July 2014 it was reported that the Indonesian Ministry of Finance had decided not to reopen the company following the airlines' accumulating a debt of 7.9 trillion Rp, as well as the failure of a debt-to-equity-swap plan proposed by the company.
In late 2016 the Ministry of State Owned Enterprises stated that the airline might be able to resume commercial flights in 2017 following a restructuring plan and government cash injection.
On 14 November 2018, The Panel of Judges of the Commercial Court decided to approve the peace proposal of PT Merpati Nusantara Airlines with its creditors held at the District Court, Surabaya, East Java. Thus, PT Merpati Nusantara Airlines was declared not bankrupt.

Corporate affairs

The airline's headquarters were in Central Jakarta. Previously, the airline had been based out of Kemajoran Airport.

Destinations

Fleet

Previous fleet

The Merpati fleet included the following aircraft prior to its suspension :
, Yogyakarta.
, Kupang, in January 2011

Fleet development

In 2012, Merpati announced that it would take delivery of Airbus A320 aircraft in 2014, but due to cash problems, this proposal for abandoned. However, due to a recent restructuring plan and government cash injection, Merpati is hoping to relaunch its operations by the end of 2017, or early 2018, most likely using Boeing 737-700 or Boeing 737-800 aircraft. However, this plan was then cancelled once again as it decided to order other aircraft types instead.
In 2018 Merpati Nusantara signed a letter of intent for 10 Irkut MC-21-300 aircraft.

Former fleet

Merpati Training Center is a division of Strategic Business Unit and is one of the largest aviation training centres in Indonesia. It conducts ground school courses for pilots, flight attendants, flight operation officers, commercial airline operations and administration staff in the region. The training centre was founded in 1994 and known as 'Flight Safety Training' training initially Merpati's own staff, but later changed its name to the Merpati Training Center in 1999. Some of MTC's clients includes the national airline, Garuda Indonesia, Sriwijaya Air, Batavia Air, Lion Air, Pelita Air Service among others.
Courses conducted by the MTC include type rating courses for pilots, flight attendants and flight operation officers on the Boeing 737 Classic, AVIC Xian MA60, Fokker F27, CASA CN-235, DHC-6 Twin Otter, CASA C-212 Aviocar, as well as other ground courses including Dangerous Goods Awareness, Airline Transport Pilot License theory, Cockpit Resources Management, Reduced Vertical Separation Minimum, Approach and Landing Accident Reduction, Safety Management Systems, Aviation Security and Windshear Avoidance.
MTC has two campuses located in Jakarta and Surabaya. MTC's Jakarta campus is located on 11th Floor of the Merpati Building in Kemayoran, whereas the Surabaya campus is located at Juanda International Airport.

Merpati Pilot School

On 16 February 2010, the Merpati Pilot School, a department of the MTC, was officially launched at Surabaya's Juanda International Airport. The flying school was awarded its Part 141 certification from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation on 18 August 2009 and currently has a fleet of four Cessna C172s, registered PK-MSA, PK-MSH, PK-MSN and PK-MST. Ground school for cadet pilots are conducted at the Merpati Training Centre in Surabaya, and flight training is conducted from Budiarto Airport, Curug as well as Trunojoyo Airport, Sumenep on the island of Madura. Flight Instructors at Merpati Pilot School are all current line pilots with Merpati Nusantara Airlines each with thousands of hours' flying experience.

Accidents and incidents