Garuda plans major restructuring that may halve operating fleet

JAKARTA, May 23 (Bloomberg): PT Garuda Indonesia needs to completely restructure its business, potentially reducing the number of planes it operates to less than half its main fleet as it seeks to survive the crisis wrought by the pandemic, its president told staff this week.

"We have to go through a comprehensive restructuring, a total one, ” President Director Irfan Setiaputra said in an address to staff on May 19, according to a recording heard by Bloomberg. "We have 142 aircraft and our preliminary calculation on how we see this recovery has been going, we will operate with a number of aircraft no more than 70.”