Indonesian Airline Chief Confident of Satisfying EU Inspectors

Text of report in English by influential Indonesian newspaper The Jakarta Post English-language website on 19 November

Early this month, a team of airline investigators from the European Union (EU) came to Jakarta for five days to conduct on- site observation in relation to the flight ban that applies to all Indonesian airlines flying to the region.

During their stay, the investigators undertook direct observation of airline regulators, state-owned Garuda Indonesia, Mandala Airlines and an air cargo service operator, Kargo Prami Air.

Although no final report has been made on the observation, second- hand feedback, such as comments from airline authorities, have been positive, saying that the investigators were “satisfied”.

To gain more insight into the matter and other issues in the industry, The Jakarta Post’s Andi Haswidi talked to Warwick Brady, president director of Mandala Airlines, which has successfully improved its safety standard.

[Q] How did the EU inspection go for Mandala?

[A] I actually went to Brussels six weeks ago. I met the EU team there. I asked how Mandala could get off this black list, and basically they were very helpful, very receptive.

When they were invited to Indonesia by the Indonesian government, they spent a day with us, inspecting our airworthiness side and our flight operation side.

They didn’t spent a lot of time here but they were very positive about the commitment of the current management team, what we have done and where we are going.

So we know what the EU regulators are looking for. We know what it takes to run an international-standard airline because we have done it before. And that is the key difference between Mandala and all the other airlines.

[Q] The authorities here are known for their reactive approach to incidents. What is your comment on that?

[A] I think the Directorate General for Aviation is coming under enormous pressure due to recent air crash incidents. But I have worked in a number of places in the world. Dealing with the directorate general is no different from dealing with the Irish regulator, English regulator or Indian regulator.

They are the same type of people, same approach. Normal regulating stuff. I’ve seen the regulator here make massive improvements since July.

It is not a push-over, I think they genuinely are working hard to be a good regulator. I’m sure, like Mandala, they have some improvements to be made, but I think they are on the correct path. Working with them has been positive.

Moreover, Indonesia is a difficult environment, say in terms of weather. Flying in Southeast Asia is definitely not like flying in Spain. You don’t have developed airports like they have in Europe and the US

[Q] The airline authority recently boosted Mandala to the first category in safety. How do you see this?

[A] Safety is such a big thing here. In most countries, safety goes without saying. So when you talk to the media, nobody says are you safe or what is happening in safety. Whereas here, there is a safety record.

In the last 18 months everyone has been talking about safety. We are now on the second part of the International Air Transport Association’s Operational Safety Audit (IOSA), which is very serious not only in making the operation safe, but also an international benchmark that we can tell everybody about.

There are a bunch of things you need to do to get to category one. And we put a lot of effort and resources into meeting those criteria.

In terms of budget, we invested over USD 1 million, just in recent safety systems. Among others is the Air Face system, which is a flight monitoring system. It basically logs every single flight. If a pilot does a high energy approach, exceeds the flap speed or exceeds the set altitude, we can monitor that, so the next day you can take corrective action and talk to the pilot.

We now have the Singapore Airlines Engineering Company looking after and managing our Airbuses. And when you buy Airbus you get services like training for pilots, engineering and so on. We train all our engineers once per month.

So when you walk into Mandala, it’s like walking into a European airline, those sorts of foundations are being laid.

[Q] You started at Mandala in July. How is the restructuring process going so far?

[A] The first part of the restructuring process is to get new management on board. We are the only Indonesian airline that is run by industry professionals from all around the world.

There is no other airline here with expatriates at the top management and operational team levels.

The concept of our team is that we want to bring together industry veterans and Indonesian talent. So we have Indonesian talent primarily focused on the commercial side of the business, which we think is imperative.

Since the start of my career I have always been involved in safety management systems. I have had a lot of success in turning operations into first class operations, including the safety side.

For example, in India, we had a small airline called Air Deccan, which had 10 aircraft when I arrived. When I left there were 45 planes. This is one of the best known airlines in the industry.

In relation to the aircraft, we basically replaced the Boeing 737s with Airbuses. So far we have 12 planes in operation, six Boeings and six Airbuses, and we are waiting for 24 more Airbuses in the future.

Originally published by The Jakarta Post website, Jakarta, in English 19 Nov 07.

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