AKARTA (Reuters) – An Indonesian court on Friday jailed Emirsyah Satar, a former chief executive of Garuda Indonesia, for bribery and money laundering related to procurement of planes and engines from Airbus and Rolls-Royce, his laywer said.
Satar’s lawyer Luhut Pangaribuan said his client had been given an eight-year sentence and fined S$2 million ($1.4 million) by the country’s corruption court.
Indonesia’s Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) had indicted Satar, CEO of Garuda from 2005 to 2014, over payments from a businessman via a third party for the procurement by Garuda Indonesia of Roll-Royce Trent 700 engines and Airbus A320 and A330 planes.
The indictment also related to the procurement of Airbus planes for PT Citilink Indonesia, a unit of Garuda.
In 2017 Rolls-Royce agreed to pay authorities more than $800 million to settle charges after an investigation by the U.S. Justice Department and Britain’s Serious Fraud Office into alleged bribery of officials in six countries in schemes that lasted more than a decade.
Airbus in February this year agreed to pay a record $4 billion in fines after reaching a plea bargain with prosecutors in Britain, France and United States over alleged bribery and corruption stretching back at least 15 years.
Satar, who had previously denied wrongdoing, will decide next week whether to appeal against his sentence, said Pangaribuan.
($1 = 1.4139 Singapore dollars)
(Reporting by Agustinus Beo Da Costa; Writing by Ed Davies; Editing by David Goodman)
World’s number one regional aircraft lessor and world’s number one regional aviation manufacturer sign landmark deal worth over US$ 2 billion
Strategic move from NAC to shape the future with the most eco-responsible and efficient regional aircraft
Paris-Le Bourget, 18 June, 2019 – Regional aircraft leasing specialist NAC and ATR, the world’s number one regional aircraft manufacturer, have today signed a Letter of Intent for 35 firm ATR -600s, with options for a further 35 and purchase rights for another 35. The deal represents a seal of long-term confidence from the number one regional aircraft lessor whose desire to focus on the most efficient and sustainable technology has led them to invest in the ATR 72-600. NAC’s recognition of the quality of the ATR programme also highlights the enduring retained asset value of the -600 series and its value proposition in the market.
Deliveries of the initial 35 aircraft will begin in 2020 and run up to 2025; the delivery schedule is optimised to ensure that market demand is best satisfied over the five-year period. This new deal cements a very successful and longstanding collaboration between NAC and ATR. Since 2010, over 100 speculative ATR aircraft orders were turned into deliveries to NAC.
NAC Chairman Martin Moller said: “To plan for a successful future, it is vital for us to invest in the very best technology, so that we can offer flexible and efficient solutions to our clients. The ATR72-600, with a significant fuel burn advantage drives lower costs and emissions making it the optimal choice for many of our clients. Aviation is moving towards a sustainable future and with this 100+ aircraft deal, we are making a strategic decision to ensure that airlines can lease and operate the most modern and eco-responsible regional aircraft available in the market.”
Stefano Bortoli, Chief Executive Officer of ATR commented: “We congratulate NAC on their forward-looking vision. It is a smart business move from NAC and one very much in line with the trends in regional aviation to connect communities and develop businesses across the globe in the most responsible and cost efficient way. To receive this order from the leading lessor in our segment, validates the value creation and quality of our product and its sustainable credentials and shows the efficiency of turboprop technology going forward. This deal clearly shows where the trend in regional aircraft is going.”
About Nordic Aviation Capital:
NAC is the industry’s leading regional aircraft lessor serving over 76 airline customers in 51 countries. The company provides aircraft to well-established carriers such as British Airways, Air Canada, LOT, Azul, Lufthansa, Garuda, Flybe, Aeroméxico and airBaltic as well as major regional carriers including Air Nostrum and Widerøe. NAC’s current fleet of almost 500 aircraft includes ATR 42, ATR 72, Bombardier Dash 8, CRJ900, CRJ1000, A220, E170, E175, E190 and E195.
About ATR:
ATR is the world number one regional aircraft manufacturer with its ATR 42 and 72 aircraft the best-selling aircraft in the less than 90-seat market segment. In 2018 the company had a turnover of US$1.8 billion. The unifying vision of the company’s 1,400 employees is to help everyone, no matter where they are in the world, to connect and develop in a responsible manner. Thanks to the efficiency of turboprop technology and the benefits of the company’s focus on continuous innovation, ATRs open more than 100 new routes every year, burn 40% less fuel and emit 40% less CO2 than regional jets. For all of these reasons, ATRs have been chosen by some 200 companies in 100 countries around the world. ATR is a joint-venture between Airbus and Leonardo.
SINGAPORE/ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Boeing Co said it invited more than 200 airline pilots, technical leaders and regulators for an information session on Wednesday as it looks to return the 737 MAX to commercial service.
The meeting is a sign that Boeing’s planned software patch is nearing completion, though it will still need regulatory approval.
Over the weekend, Ethiopian Airlines executives had questioned whether Boeing had told pilots enough about “aggressive” software that pushes the plane’s nose down, a focus of investigation into a deadly crash in Ethiopia this month that led to the global grounding of 737 MAX jets.
The informational session in Renton, Washington on Wednesday is part of a plan to reach all current and many future 737 MAX operators and their home regulators to discuss software and training updates to the jet, Boeing said in a statement.
Garuda Indonesia, which on Friday said it planned to cancel its order for 49 737 MAX jets citing a loss of passenger trust after the crashes, was invited to the briefing, CEO Ari Askhara told Reuters on Monday.
“We were informed on Friday, but because it is short notice we can’t send a pilot there,” he said, adding the airline had requested a webinar with Boeing but that idea had been rejected.
A Boeing spokeswoman said the Wednesday event was one of a series of in-person information sessions.
“We have been scheduling and will continue to arrange additional meetings to communicate with all current and many future MAX customers and operators,” she said.
Garuda has only one 737 MAX and had been reconsidering its order before the Ethiopian crash, as has fellow Indonesian carrier Lion Air, which experienced a deadly crash in October.
Singapore Airlines Ltd said on Monday its offshoot SilkAir, which operates the 737 MAX, had received the invitation to the Wednesday event and would send representatives.
Korean Air Lines Co Ltd, which before the grounding had been due to receive its first 737 MAX in April, said it planned to send pilots to Renton.
The 737 MAX is Boeing’s best-selling plane, with orders worth more than $500 billion at list prices.
Teams from the three U.S. airlines that own 737 MAX jets participated in a session in Renton reviewing a planned software upgrade on Saturday.
A U.S. official briefed on the matter Saturday said the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has not yet signed off on the software upgrade and training but the goal is to review them in coming weeks and approve them by April.
It remained unclear whether the software upgrade, called “design changes” by the FAA, will resolve concerns stemming from the ongoing investigation into the March 10 Ethiopian Airlines crash, which killed all 157 on board.
“After the crash it came to our attention that the system is aggressive,” Yohannes Hailemariam, vice president for flight operations at Ethiopian, told local reporters speaking in the Amharic language.
“It gives a message of stalling and it takes immediate action which is faster than the action which pilots were briefed to take by Boeing,” said Yohannes, himself a pilot with over 30 years of experience, including flying Boeing’s 777 and 787.
The U.S. official said planned changes included 15 minutes of training to help pilots deactivate the anti-stall system known as MCAS in the event of faulty sensor data or other issues. It also included some self-guided instruction, the official added.
American Airlines said Sunday it will extend flight cancellations through April 24 because of the grounding of the 737 MAX and cut some additional flights.
(Reporting by Jamie Freed in Singapore and Jason Neely in Addis Ababa; additional reporting by Cindy Silviana in Jakarta, Heekyong Yang in Seoul, Tracy Rucinski in Chicago and David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Chris Reese and Michael Perry)
JAKARTA/OSLO
(Reuters) – Indonesian airline Garuda plans to cancel a $6 billion
order for Boeing 737 MAX jets, it said on Friday, saying some passengers
would be frightened to board the plane after two fatal crashes,
although analysts said the deal had long been in doubt.
The
news came as another 737 MAX customer, Norwegian Air, played down the
significance of a move by Boeing to make a previously optional cockpit
warning light compulsory.
Norwegian
said that, according to Boeing, the warning light would not have been
able to prevent erroneous signals that Lion Air pilots received before
their new 737 MAX plane crashed off Indonesia in October, killing 189
people.
Indonesia’s
national carrier Garuda is the first airline to publicly announce plans
to scrap an order since the world’s entire fleet of 737 MAX planes was
grounded last week, following an Ethiopian Airlines crash that left 157
people dead.
“Many passengers told us they were afraid to get on a MAX 8,” Garuda CEO Ari Askhara told Reuters on Friday.
However,
the airline had been reconsidering its order for 49 of the narrowbody
jets prior to the Ethiopian crash, including potentially swapping some
for widebody Boeing models.
Southeast
Asia faces a glut of narrowbody aircraft like the 737 MAX and rival
Airbus A320neo at a time of slowing global economic growth and high fuel
costs.
“They
have been re-looking at their fleet plan anyway so this is an
opportunity to make some changes that otherwise may be difficult to do,”
CAPA Centre for Aviation Chief Analyst Brendan Sobie said.
Indonesia’s
Lion Air has also said it might cancel 737 MAX aircraft, though
industry sources say it is also struggling to absorb the number of
planes on order.
Both
crashes are still being investigated. But regulators have noted some
similarities between the two, and attention has focused on whether
pilots had the correct information about the “angle of attack” at which
the wing slices through the air.
No direct link has been proven between the accidents.
RETROFITS
Boeing
now plans to make compulsory a light to alert pilots when sensor
readings of the angle of attack do not match – meaning at least one must
be wrong -, according to two officials briefed on the matter.
Investigators
suspect a faulty angle-of-attack reading led the doomed Lion Air jet’s
computer to believe it had stalled, prompting the plane’s anti-stall
system, called MCAS, repeatedly to push the plane’s nose down.
The
Lion Air plane did not have the warning light installed because it was
not compulsory. Ethiopian Airlines did not immediately comment on
whether its crashed plane had the alert.
But
the Ethiopian carrier, whose reputation along with Boeing’s is at
stake, issued a statement on Friday emphasising the modernity of its
safety and training systems, with more than $500 million invested in
infrastructure in the past five years.
The
Ethiopian crash has set off one of the widest inquiries in aviation
history and cast a shadow over the Boeing 737 MAX model intended to be a
standard for decades.
Boeing
did not comment on the plan to make the safety feature standard, but
separately said it was moving quickly to make software changes and
expected the upgrade to be approved by the U.S. Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA) in coming weeks.
Chicago-based Boeing will also retrofit older planes with the cockpit warning light, the officials told Reuters.
Experts
said it could take weeks or months to be done, and for regulators to
review and approve the changes. Regulators in Europe and Canada have
said they will conduct their own reviews of any new systems.
Norwegian
said its 18 737 MAX jets did not have the cockpit warning light, but it
would follow any recommendations made by Boeing and aviation
regulations. The airline said last week it would seek compensation from
Boeing for the cost of grounding its 737 MAX planes, which makes up 11
percent of its fleet.
Since the Ethiopian crash, Boeing shares have fallen 12 percent and $28 billion has been wiped off its market value.
Pressure
has mounted on the company from U.S. legislators, who are also expected
to question the FAA. The company faces a criminal investigation by the
U.S. Justice Department as well.
Several
lawsuits have already been filed on behalf of victims of the Lion Air
crash referring to the Ethiopian accident. Boeing declined to comment on
the lawsuits.
( By Cindy Silviana and Terje Solsvik, Additional reporting by Jamie Freed in Singapore, Bernadette Christina Munthe in Jakarta, Maggie Fick and Jason Neely in Addis Ababa, Tim Hepher in Paris, and Eric M. Johnson in Seattle; Writing by Sayantani Ghosh, Georgina Prodhan and Ben Klayman; Editing by Mark Potter)
SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China’s aviation regulator said on Monday it had ordered Chinese airlines to suspend their Boeing Co 737 MAX aircraft operations by 6 p.m. (5.00 a.m. ET) following a deadly crash of one of the planes in Ethiopia.
An Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX 8 bound for Nairobi crashed minutes after take-off on Sunday, killing all 157 people on board.
It was the second crash of the 737 MAX, the latest version of Boeing’s workhorse narrowbody jet that first entered service in 2017.
In October, a 737 MAX 8 operated by Indonesian budget carrier Lion Air crashed 13 minutes after take-off from Jakarta on a domestic flight, killing all 189 passengers and crew on board.
The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said in a statement it would notify airlines as to when they could resume flying the jets after contacting Boeing and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to ensure flight safety.
“Given that two accidents both involved newly delivered Boeing 737-8 planes and happened during take-off phase, they have some degree of similarity,” the CAAC said, adding that the order was in line with its principle of zero-tolerance on safety harzards. The 737 MAX 8 is sometimes referred to as the 737-8.
The cause of the Indonesian crash is still being investigated. A preliminary report issued in November, before the cockpit voice recorder was recovered, focused on airline maintenance and training and the response of a Boeing anti-stall system to a recently replaced sensor but did not give a reason for the crash.
Chinese airlines have 96 737 MAX jets in service, the state company regulator said on Weibo.
Caijing, a Chinese state-run news outlet that covers finance and economics, said many flights scheduled to use 737 MAX planes would instead use the 737-800 models.
A Boeing spokesman declined to comment.
A U.S. official told Reuters the United States was unsure of what information China was acting on.
The U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, said there were no plans to follow suit given the 737 MAX had a stellar safety record in the United States and there was a lack of information about the cause of the Ethiopian crash.
Western industry sources say China has been at pains in recent years to assert its independence as a safety regulator as it negotiates mutual safety standard recognition with regulators in the United States and Europe.
In 2017, it signed a mutual recognition deal with the FAA, but industry sources say it has struggled to gain approval from the FAA that would allow it to sell its C919 airliner to Western airlines.
SAFETY STANDARDS
According to flight tracking website FlightRadar24 there were no Boeing 737 MAX 8 planes flying over China as of 0043 GMT on Monday.
Most of Air China Ltd’s 737 MAX fleet of 15 jets landed on Sunday evening, with the exception of two that landed on Monday morning from international destinations, according to data on FlightRadar24.
It did not list any upcoming scheduled flights for the planes, nor did China Southern Airlines Co, which also has its fleet on the ground.
China Eastern Airlines Corp Ltd four 737 MAX jets landed on Sunday evening and no further flights were scheduled until Tuesday, FlightRadar24 data showed.
Cayman Airways has grounded both of its new 737 MAX 8 jets until more information was received, the Cayman Islands airline said in a statement on its website.
Fiji Airways said it had followed a comprehensive induction process for its new Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft and it had full confidence in the airworthiness of its fleet.
“We continue to ensure that our maintenance and training program for pilots and engineers meets the highest safety standards,” the airline said.
Singapore Airlines Ltd, whose regional arm SilkAir operates the 737 MAX, said it was monitoring the situation closely, but its planes continued to operate as scheduled.
Indonesia said it would continue to monitor its airlines operating the 737 MAX, which include Lion Air and Garuda Indonesia but it did not mention any plan to ground the planes.
(Reporting by Josh Horwitz and John Ruwitch; additional reporting by Brenda Goh in Shanghai, Stella Qiu in Beijing, David Shepardson in Washington, Tom Westbrook in Sydney, Jamie Freed in Singapore; Edward Davies in Jakarta and Tim Hepher in Paris; Editing by Richard Pullin, Robert Birsel)
