Pacific Royale CEO resigns

Despite much news coverage for startup Pacific Royale over the 12 months, it appears that the carrier continues to suffer from problems. The latest is that the CEO, Samudra Sukardi, has resigned as per 1 August.

Samudra Sukardi's resignation was covered by Kontan, and cites that the Sukardi's term was only for the startup phase, and now that the airline is flying, it was time for him to step aside. Another reason cited was that no agreement had been reached about extending his contract.

While the official reason looks kinda iffy but reasonable, I suspect there is a lot more to the story than the airline is willing to admit.

Following the story of the airline through various sources, a gloomy picture emerged. Hence I think, the CEO was asked to leave... if only several of his 'henchmen' would leave too!

Several sources cited internal corruption as the major problem for this startup, whose funding has already been commented as inadequate to establish itself in Indonesia's competitive environment by several analysts.

There seems to be lack of transparency by the company too when it comes to the attempts to lease the A320s it needs to have to complete the startup phase. I was approached last year to source several A320s for the airline, but it really never got anywhere as the airline deems the required documentation by the leasing companies as "going naked into the open." (I must say, the documentation requirement is standard!)

The delay in commencement of flights has also made the A320 pilots to threaten a walk-out several months ago, but this was averted by the commencement of the Fokker 50 operations as a "concrete milestone."

The Fokker 50 operations hasn't been a stellar success either. Observers in the field note the low passenger numbers for operations between Surabaya, Semarang and Bandung. Sometimes the passenger count is as low as 4 passengers, and the highest number I got was less than 30 passengers. It does not look good.

To make matters worse, the inaugural Java based operations was marred by a bird strike on the last flight of the day, and subsequent maintenance problems occured, reducing operational continuity. It doesn't help that their sole other aircraft (another F-50) is based in Batam on a totally separate network. Now, that other aircraft is in maintenance, reportedly for "fitting EGPWS", but the pictures reveal that engine maintenance might be needed.

Again, to make matters worse, it is also rumored that the Fokker 50s do not have a parts sourcing contract or 3rd party maintenance support. One source close to the Ministry of Transportation said that Pacific Royale at one stage even claimed that Fokker Air Services in Singapore had closed shop (while other Fokker users here still use them!).

The dubious maintenance questions and allegations do not stop there. The first two Fokker 50s are ex Ethiopian Airlines, and somehow managed to be registered in Indonesia without the mandatory HF radios. Stories on what happened when the Ministry of Transport realized this had slipped, was rather bizarre, in that the airline simply cannibalized an HF radio from another aircraft and put it on, without obtaining a Supplemental Type Certification required for the modification.

Despite all this, there are some good news still. It is reported that they have finally secured their first A320 (but delivery is as usual, postponed). They also have received their 3rd Fokker 50, PK-PRC, interestingly, on 1 August, the day the CEO resigned.

Pacific Royale's third Fokker 50 on arrival at Jakarta's Halim
Airport on 1 August 2012 (Photo: Bintang Sakti)

I have grave concerns regarding the timing and the public version of the reason for the CEO's resignation. If you hear the stuff I hear, in which I gave just a snippet of it, wouldn't you? Now if this isn't the Chairman "cleaning out the house" at Pacific Royale, then perhaps the end IS near...

Citilink - New AOC, New Logo, Still Garuda

Garuda's low cost arm, Citilink launched a new slightly modified livery to signify a new spirit with it's newly obtained AOC. The new livery changes the lightest green tone in its tail to yellow, and large Citilink titles put on the fuselage

.

New livery, new logo, "new" uniform, new AOC, and still
Garuda Indonesia?

However, I cannot stop but think, this is like, it's third livery in recent years and fourth in a decade. The first livery was the floral batik, the second was the plain white with red tail, the third was the green version of Garuda Indonesia's livery, and now the fourth, turns the green feathers into... a banana tree?

Eh? Banana tree? Sorry, I mean palm tree...

Green Nature's Wing livery launched in August 2011

Mutating the green nature wings into the palm tree.

PK-GLG was recently spotted undergoing the transformation
to the Palm Tree livery variant. (Photo by: Edo RS)

Scootin' with chicks with no bandwidth

If Singapore was run by Hugo Chavez, Scoot's recent launch of the Taipei promo fares would have resulted in Chavez-like public rants of "foreign conspiracy".

What?

Take a look:

Is Singapore Airlines group saying, "dear Singapore, if you're bored with Singaporean chicks, grab our cheap fares to Taipei and get laid or get your stomach's full". (Eh, hang on, where does that leave the "Singapore Girl"? I wonder...)

So, those willing to get hot chicks for SGD88 (or those who'd rather be comfortable when confronted with the chicks by paying SGD248) jumped at the Scoot website only to be disappointed by Scoot's IT impotence...

Impotence? Excuse me? Yes!

I mean, just look at this:

Sorry, we're having a promo but
we are out of bandwidth?

Let's not forget the basic rules of an airline web promo fare launch:

• ONE: GET THE BANDWIDTH
• TWO: GET THE BOOKING SERVER PROCESSING POWER
• THREE: GET THE PAYMENT ENGINE BANDWIDTH AND PROCESSING POWER!
• FOUR: WHEN IN DOUBT, OBTAIN EXPERT'S OPINION

But, before we conclude where the problem is, let's find out where the problem is...

• Problem on rule One? Errr, No. Scoot's website was functioning.
• Problem on rule Three? Errr, we never got to that stage, but could be.
• Problem on rule Four? Perhaps... but surely Scoot could have asked for an opinion by the IT department at SQ?
• Problem on rule Two? The booking engine is powered by Navitaire, who provide e-booking and ticketless processing power for numerous airlines around the world and are used to these promo-bandwidth-floods.

So what gives?

Navitaire is the expert in handling these web promotions, they are also the provider of booking server processing etc etc. Why was Scoot caught off guard?

Perhaps Scoot was reluctant in taking in the advise from Navitaire on the web promotion because the its most successful handling of a massive web promo campaign for its next door rival, Air Asia, who, according to internal sources, handled 340,000 booking queries, processing, and successful payments per second (or was it 3.4 million... I forgot) in 2009 and 2010.

Maybe there's a little Chavez somewhere in Scoot saying, "this is an American and Malaysian conspiracy against Singaporeans getting hot chicks!" It may sound silly, but is it sillier than Scoot simply underestimating the demand and not tell Navitaire about it? (Well, I admit, probably some Scoot beancounter didn't want to pay extra for the promo peak handling capacity from Navitaire... but who knows...)


Thank you to @CharlesRyanTeo for the pics!

Did someone chop the roo's head off?

I've always known Qantas as the "Spirit of Australia", and I've always liked the endless (albeit monotonous at times) variety of "I still call Australia home" adverts they can come up with. The recent change in marketing campaign however, leaves me doing nothing but shake my head.

The campaign starting in July, focuses on a new tagline. "Spirit of Australians", with "the tale of two letters." Two letters... they hope can change the fate of Qantas. I thought this would make a nice new change to Qantas, I agree on the underlying marketing lingo explaining the change. 

I actually thought it was going to work... That was until I read a fellow blogger's article: Qantas rewords, rephrases, repositions...

This isn't a rebranding campaign, not a change of company slogan campaign, this is just... "adding" of two letters, add "n" and "s" to the "Spirit of Australia" on the left side of the aircraft to be "Spirit of Australians"... on TWO aircraft only !

In my eyes, his is a half-hearted attempt at regurgitating Ansett Australia's "Absolutely" campaign. Perhaps they were fearful that CEO Alan Joyce might scream at the bill of changing the writing at the whole of the right side of the aircraft? (Yes, even on just two aircraft!)

This sentiment is shared by fellow blogger, Kinny Cheng who runs UXmilk.com. Over the past week we've exchanged ideas, jokes, and criticism at this recent campaign. Whilst he has other (very witty) conclusion, mine is simply, half-hearted.

But the campaign doesn't just stop there! UXmilk ran another blog article which simply made me continue shaking my head. Qantas… is going to make me famous?

So, "Spirit of Australians" will put 2 extra letters on one side of two aircraft, add the names of 2 competition winners on those two aircraft, and the rest is (nothing more than) a testimonials campaign by Australians!

One newspaper quoted a very good phrase to describe this campaign. Qantas Marketing Manager Lewis Pullen has described the change as a "leap of faith".

One hell of a half-hearted leap of faith!

First CRJ1000NG for Garuda revealed

Garuda's 1st CRJ1000NG (to be registered PK-GRA) shown
at Bombardier's Montreal Dorval Plant.

Bombardier revealed the first CRJ1000NG for Garuda to reporters and analysts on 19 June 2012 to reporters and financial analysts during a media preview of the upcoming Farnborough Airshow.

The aircraft is shown here without engines. Want to see it with the engines? Go to Farnborough!