Garuda CEO will step down in New Year
The CEO of Indonesian flag carrier Garuda, Emirsyah Satar will step down at the end of this year or early next year, following a shareholder’s meeting.
It’s not an unexpected move as current Indonesian rules restrict any CEO from serving more than two five-year terms.
Satar has been at the post for the last decade.
During his two terms, Satar has overseen a dramatic turnaround in fortunes.
He has taken a loss-making state-owned airline with a poor safety record to a well respected world-class carrier and in 2103 was voted ‘World’s Best Economy Class Airline’ by Skytrax.
Satar himself was recently awarded ‘APAC Airline Executive of the Year 2014’ by CAPA Centre for Aviation.
Garuda also became a member of the SkyTeam alliance recently and has resumed flights to and from Europe after regaining the highest safety rating from EU regulators.
Satar said he will spend his remaining months focusing on its loss-making budget arm Citilink.
Last month Garuda said it would postpone an earlier plan to sell a stake of Citilink.
"We see that the market is growing but the budget travellers’ growth is higher than the premium, where Garuda is," he said.
"When passengers pick an airline, they want to see frequencies, network coverage. Therefore, size matters and therefore right now, we are really pushing Citilink to grow."
Satar did not reveal what he plans to do after stepping down.
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Editor for TravelMole North America and Asia pacific regions. Ray is a highly experienced (15+ years) skilled journalist and editor predominantly in travel, hospitality and lifestyle working with a huge number of major market-leading brands. He has also cover in-depth news, interviews and features in general business, finance, tech and geopolitical issues for a select few major news outlets and publishers.
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