"The board of directors of Mandala reported verbally yesterday and today I received a written report. They have asked for permission to stop operations temporarily as of tomorrow (January 13)," the director general of air transportation, Herry Bakti S Gumay, said when contacted here on Wednesday.
He said Mandala said it would concentrate on settling its financial problems first especially "with regard to its obligations to its aircraft lessors."
It would depend upon Mandala`s readiness when it would reopen its operations, he said.
In connection with that he said Mandala must remain settling its obligations to its customers especially those who have bought tickets from it and others.
"Mandala must settle its obligations to its customers," he said.
Herry however could not tell how bad was the company`s financial conditions "Whether the cash flow is negative or not I do not know including how much its total obligations to the lessors."
He said he welcomed the decision of the Mandala`s management to ask for a deferment of its debt repayment to the Commerce Court in Central Jakarta.
Mandala`s corporate secretary Nurmaria Sarona on a separate occasion confirmed the plan saying that the request for deferment would be the best solution if the company wished to continue to operate.
"The request for deferment is the best decision that could be taken to assure the continuation of the company`s future operations," he said.
Murmaria said the company needs quite a lot of funds for restructuring so that it could have a position and to build a clear brand to strengthen its operations.
Herry said before stopping its operations Mandala only operated five planes.
In the middle of 2010 Mandala increased its regional routes by opening the Jakarta-Singapore and Balikpapan-Singapore routes.
To serve increasing passengers Mandala has planned to increase its flee with 25 new Airbus planes.
(Uu.E008/H-YH/HAJM/A014/P003)
Editor: Priyambodo RH
Copyright © ANTARA 2011
