Australia Approves Garuda Indonesia Maintenance Facility As AMO Member

Jakarta, April 23 (Antara) - The Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) has approved PT Garuda Maintenance Facility Aero Asia (GMF) as a member of "Approved Maintenance Organization" (AMO). "We are very grateful as Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) has approved the GMF to hold the AMO certificate to maintain the airplanes under the Australian registration. They also had sent some auditors to asses the items required," said GMF`s Vice President of Quality Assurance and Safety Ganis Kristanto here on Tuesday. According to Kristanto, those auditors were responsible on the assessment of maintenance exposition manual, safety management manual and related quality procedures of the GMF`s. The plane`s rating that has been approved by CASA to be maintained by GMF are B737-600, B737-700, B737-800, B737-900, A318, A319, A320, and A321 for the base maintenance in Cengkareng, West Java and line maintenance in Denpasar, Bali, he explained. "The auditing at the GMF home base in Cengkareng was conducted in April 15 to 17, 2013. While, the auditing at the GMF line maintenance in Denpasar was on April 18 to 19, 2013," he said. During the auditing process in Denpasar, Kristanto said the auditors had watched the maintaining process of Virgin Australia Airlines` (VAA) directly and they satisfied to the results, hence GMF deserved to be certified as one of CASA`s AMO member. "There was no significant findings during the auditing process, but some minor things that were recommended to GMF as an evaluation," he said and added that those recommendations have been followed up. The significant point of the GMF`s success of holding the CASA`s AMO certification under the Australian registration was its positive impact to the future of domestic aviation company and its potential to open the larger market in Australia. "Moreover, some of Australian airlines have the direct flight to several cities in Indonesia, particularly in eastern region like Denpasar (Bali), Mataram (West Nusa Tenggara) and Surabaya (East Java)," he said.