Indonesia grounds nine airlines over safety standards
Jakarta - Indonesian authorities have revoked the licences of four airlines and suspended a further five from operating for failing to comply basic safety standards, local media reports said Tuesday.
Transport Ministry's Director General for Aviation Budi Mulyawan Suyitno said that only the national flag carrier Garuda had managed to improve and was elevated to the highest category, after fulfilling 84 per cent of aviation standards, reported Media Indonesia, an Indonesian daily.
The government intensified safety efforts following a string of airlinea ccidents and near-misses, including the crash-landing of a Garuda Airlines plane in Yogyakarta in March that left 21 dead, including five Australians.
Suyitno said Jatayu Air, one of the low-cost commercial airlines, is among the four that have been their licences revoked, while three others are charter or small airlines with planes that carry less than 30 passengers.
The five airlines that had their licences suspended - SMAC, Kura-Kura Aviation, Germania Trisila, Atlas Deltasatya and Survei Udara Penas - have three months to improve their safety, he added.
Indonesia has dozens of low-cost airlines following the deregulation of the industry in late 1990s, leading to a quadrupling of passenger numbers in the past seven years.
But the industry has been beset by crashes, which prompted the Indonesian government to announce the new ratings system.
On New Year's Day, a budget airline Adam Air plane with 102 people onboard plunged into the ocean off the coast of Sulawesi island en route from the East Java provincial capital of Surabaya to Manado, the capital of North Sulwesi, killing all on board.
Deutsche Presse-Agentur
Indonesia has shut down four airlines and grounded five others with the potential of similar licence revocations for failing to meet safety standards.

The largest company to lose its licence is Jatayu Gelang Sejahtera. The other companies are all small airlines operating only aircraft with a passenger capacity of fewer than thirty, and are Aviasi Upataraksa, Alfa Trans Dirgantara and Prodexim. The companies that were grounded pending either improvements or licence revokation are Germania Trisila Air, Atlas Delta Setia, Survey Udara Penas, Kura-kura Aviation and SMAC, all of which also operate only aircraft with under-30 passenger capacities. They have three months to improve, or their licences will be revoked.

Jatayu had already ceased operations in August, but had intended to restart with a 150-seat Boeing 737. The licence was revoked because the state requires at least two aircraft to be commercially operated and because of the fact that it "was lacking in pilots and human resources". Also, the age of the jetliner meant that it would require a test called a 'C-Check' before it could begin commercial services, at a cost of $120,000.

The action comes as the result of a number of air crashes, namely the Adam Air Flight 574 disaster in which 102 people were killed, and the Adam Air Flight 172 accident, in which a plane snapped in half during a hard landing, but managed to hold together, thus preventing any serious injuries. As a result, all 54 of Indonesia's airlines were given a safety rating, with a level-1 rating meaning no action was needed, a level-2 rating meaning the airline needed to make some improvements, and a level-3 rating requiring that the airline be shut down unless improvements were made within three months. Most airlines received a level-2 rating, while none received the top rating. Adam Air was among the airlines to receive the level-3 rating, but was upgraded to tier 2 at the same time as the groundings.

Meanwhile, state-owned Garuda Indonesia is now the only airline to have a type-1 rating, despite the fatal crash of Garuda Indonesia Flight 200 in March. According to the Indonesian Transport Ministry's Director General for Aviation Budi Mulyawan Suyitno, Garuda now satisfied 84 percent of civil aviation standards.

The ratings have been based on such criteria as surveillance, ramp checks, personnel, department safety, number of accidents and number of serious incidents, according to the BBC. Meanwhile, ''Flight Global'' is reporting that, according to Directorate General of Air Communications (DGAC) director of air certification office, Yurlis Hasibuan “20 criteria including whether the airline has developed better safety and human resources” are checked.