Garuda Indonesia

From Free net encyclopedia

PT (Persero) Perusahaan Penerbangan Garuda Indonesia, abbreviated to PT Garuda Indonesia, is the national airline of the Republic of Indonesia, based in Jakarta. Garuda is the name of the mythical bird found on Pancasila the national seal of the government of Indonesia. In Indian, Vedic tradition, Garuda is the flight carrier of Lord Vishnu. The airline operates domestic services to 30 destinations and international services to over 20 destinations in Asia Pacific, Middle East and Europe. Its main base is Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Jakarta, with a hub at Ngurah Rai Airport, Bali.

1 Code Data
2 History
3 Services
4 Fleet
5 External links

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Code Data

IATA Code: GA
ICAO Code: GIA
Callsign: Indonesia

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History

Garuda Indonesia traces its beginning to the late 1940s, during the Indonesian war of independence against the Dutch. At this time, Garuda flew special transports with Douglas DC-3 aircraft. January 26 1949 is generally recognized as the airline's birthday. At that time, the airline was known as Garuda Indonesian Airways. Their first plane was a DC-3 known as Seulawah or Gold Mountain, the money to buy the plane was contributed by the Acehnese people especially the merchant, the plane was bought for a total sum of 120,000 Malayan dollar which is the same with 20 kg of gold. The airline kept performing in support of the Indonesian interests until the revolution against the Dutch was over. Image:Garuda Indonesia Air Lines at Narita 200507.jpg The government of Burma helped the airline much during the airline's beginnings. Because of that, after the airline was formally incorporated jointly with KLM as a company on March 31, 1950, the airline presented the Burmese government with a DC-3. By 1953, the airline had 46 planes, but by 1955 their Catalina aircraft were retired. In 1956 they made their first pilgrim flight to the city of Mecca.

The 1960s were times of great progress for the airline: The airline fleet in 1960 includes 8 Convair 240, 8 Convair 340 and 3 Convair 440 In 1961 and in late 1965 two types of aircraft were introduced that comprises of 3 Convair 990 jet plane and also 3 Lockheed L-188 Electra, a route was opened to Kai Tak International Airport in Hong Kong. After concentrating on domestic and regional services, the first flights to Europe were added on 28 September 1963 to Amsterdam and Frankfurt,In 1965 flights to Europe were expanded with flights to Rome & Paris via Bombay & Cairo, the European route were wholly operated by Convair 990 jet plane. Also in that year flights to China were commenced, with Garuda flying to Canton via Phnom Penh. In 1965, the jet age arrived, with a Douglas DC-8 that was used to fly to Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam.

The 1970s brought McDonnell Douglas DC-9 equipment and Fokker F28 jets which at one point Garuda owned 36 of them (which made Garuda the largest operator of F.28 at that time), while the 1980s brought Airbus equipment such as the Airbus A300 and Airbus A300-600 as well as Boeing 737s, Boeing 747s, and McDonnell Douglas MD-11s.

In the 1990s, Garuda suffered plane crashes, and the airline went through a period of economic distress. In July 1995 it began a joint cargo service with KLM between Amsterdam and Jakarta with stops in Bombay and Kuala Lumpur. However, the airline has favourably recovered from economic problems and seems to be in good economic shape entering the middle 2000s. In 2001 a low-cost airline subsidiary, Citilink, was established to provide shuttle services between Indonesian cities.

It is wholly owned by the Indonesian government and employs 6,251 staff (at January 2005).

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