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Mandala Airlines, an Indonesian carrier, has been given a ‘go’ to resume operations after being grounded for over a year in January 2011 following a financial crisis. As quoted by Yahoo! Indonesia on Tuesday (21/Feb), Tiger Airways Holding Limited, its second biggest shareholder, announced that Mandala’s Flight Operation Certificate has been reactivated by the Director General of Air Transportation of the Indonesian Transportation Ministry.

“Further information on the number of aircraft and destinations will be announced in a due time and flights are expected to resume in April 2012,” Tiger Airways stated.

Mandala’s license was revoked in 2011 to enable the airline, previously owned by the Indonesian military until 2006, to reorganize its financial position in order to settle a massive amount of debts. Part of the restructuring program was the Indonesian investment company, Saratoga Groups’, entrance into the aviation business with 51.3% of shares. Tiger Airways followed suit with 33% of shares through their subsidiary, Roar Aviation Pte Ltd. Meanwhile the remaining 15.7% is controlled by Mandala’s previous shareholders and creditors. The newly rejuvenated airline will continue to use Airbus A320 as its main aircraft and to expand the network within Indonesia and beyond with the maximum 5 hours of flying time.

source: travel.detik.com

Apart from its financial settlement, the come back of Mandala is a great relief to the already tainted image of the Indonesian aviation industry. The public still vividly recalls the drug case involving 2 pilots of Lion Air which sparked horror among the consumers and mounted nothing but rage to the operator. Poor schedule maintenance has long been perceived as ‘classic’ that passengers would expect delay as soon as the day of departure comes without attracting the regulators’ attention.

Mandala Airlines began to shape its new image in 2006 with a modest movement of acquiring some A320s from Airbus Industrie when the market was expanding rapidly and some major players, notably Air Asia, aggressively extended its network and acquired new planes. Both Air Asia and Mandala moved to the new Terminal 3 of Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta International Airport and were perceived as progressive carriers.

The last time I flew with Mandala was in December 2007 and it happened to be the maiden flight of a new aircraft. The condition of the plane was superb and spotlessly clean, complimented further by the heartwarming service of the flight attendants. One thing I remember fondly was shortly before take-off when a flight attendant toured the cabin one last time just to make sure personal lights were switched on for certain passengers who were reading before cabin lights were dimmed. The attention to the very last detail was second only to Singaporean carriers.

I can’t wait to fly with Mandala again!