Gatari Air Service
Gatari Air Service is an Indonesian charter airline that started operating in 1983. The airline was successful in the mid and late 1980s, but has since shrunk back after repaying several debts and seizing several aircraft.
history
Gatari was founded in 1983 with six Bell 412 helicopters; 80 percent of the company belonged to Tommy Suharto, the remaining 20 percent to Bob Hasan. The company was part of the Humpuss Group. The charter cost 100 million Rp. Most of his clientele came from the oil industry and most of his pilots and mechanics were non-Indonesians. After the 1985 oil boom, corporate profits rose sharply, peaking at $ 17 million in 1985, before falling to $ 13 million in 1986. In 1988 they outperformed seven other local charter agencies by training pilots at the Freeport-McMoRan branch in Papua and assisting the Indonesian Air Force with their exercises.
Because of these declining profits, Gatari diversified to include chartered flights for tourists and the timber industry across Indonesia, including Sulawesi, Java and Borneo. They also started hiring more Indonesian pilots and maintenance crews. By 1990 they had a total of 38 aircraft, mostly helicopters, and in 1991 they acquired a Bombardier 601-3A for $ 17 million. The company eventually owned three Boeing 747s, but they were sold in 1999 to repay a debt.
In 1992, the company signed a five-year contract with the Ministry of Forestry and Plantations and maintained twelve helicopters for the Ministry, which are due to be returned in 1999. Since May 2000, the Prosecutor General's Office under Marzuki Darusman began investigating possible messy relations between the ministry and Gatari, implying Sudjono Suryo of the ministry and the president of the director Kabul Riswanto of Gatari. The case concerned fraud amounting to Rp 23.3 billion and the misuse of public funds; Gatari argued that the ministry failed to keep its end of the agreement and inflicted financial losses on the company. In October 2000, the Attorney General's Office seized three of the company's helicopters, two of which were in poor condition to fly.
In 2002 Gatari was one of several Jakarta helicopter charter agencies charging $ 2,250 an hour. The number of pilots has since decreased, and since 2007 Gatari has a fleet of five with two Indonesian pilots.