At the World Aviation Festival in Lisbon, cabin crew at Garuda Indonesia were filmed and pictured handing out flyers about the carrier’s debts and asked for support from travelers to fly with them.
You will be able to see from the video below what exactly went on in Lisbon with this crew:
Garuda Indonesia Cabin Crew Hand Out Flyers About Debts…
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The main flyer itself said the following regarding Garuda Indonesia:
“Due to systemic management failure, Indonesia’s flag carrier losses deepen into red numbers with debts that stand at billions”.
“In the last year, the airline’s stock plummeted by 60%. It would be a great shame if the livery of Indonesian pride vanishes from our skies”.
Below that was a QR code that was captioned with:
“Help Garuda defy gravity and stay afloat”.
Upon scanning that QR code, it takes you to a website dubbed save-garuda.com, which basically emphasises the same point again.
AviationSource approached Garuda Indonesia for a comment on this particular footage on five separate occasions in a single week, and at the time of publication, they have not responded to our queries. We will update the article when such quotes have been established.
A Shaky Few Years for the Airline…
It has been a shaky few years for Garuda Indonesia, and to a greater extent, the last decade or so has been like this.
Back in 2009, the airline introduced a restructuring program called the Quantum Leap to redesign a lot of aspects in the business.
Years after that, significant cost-cutting has taken place, and even went as far as purchasing airplanes for in excess of $20bn at the Paris Air Show back in 2015.
Losses continued to get exacerbated by 2020, when they had increased to $2.4bn in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, with this increasing to $9bn by 2021, as per Simple Flying.
Back in September 2022, Garuda Indonesia applied for Chapter 15 Bankruptcy proceedings in the United States, further adding to the significant turmoil that the airline is currently in.
What Is Next For The Airline?
What’s becoming very clear right now is that a significant change of tack is going to be needed moving forward by Garuda Indonesia.
It is unclear whether the airline themselves instructed cabin crew to do that at the World Aviation Festival, or whether this was off their own back, but that is a worrying perspective regardless.
Looking ahead, all eyes will be on the airline to see if they can get themselves through this period of financial turmoil, and whether in fact the action of these cabin crew will help contribute to that.
Either way, it’s going to be a fascinating chain of events, especially with the competition that they have against the likes of Lion Air.
But for now, all eyes are on Garuda Indonesia to see what their next steps will be.
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