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The Long Journey of Garuda ’s Fokker F-28
The history of Garuda Indonesia’s 34 Fokker F-28 aircraft was a long one. These planes joined Garuda Indonesia’s fleet in September 1971 and ended their loyal service on 5 April 2001. And even then, they were not allowed to rest; they were put to work for several years with Citilink, a low cost carrier for the middle- to low-end market established by Garuda Indonesia. For the 29 years and seven months of their service, the Fokker F-28s were not only the main contributor to Garuda Indonesia’s earnings, but also helped to unite the archipelago.
The idea of bringing Fokker F-28 aircraft into Garuda Indonesia begin in 1968, when Wiweko Supono was appointed President Director of Garuda Indonesia, then still known as Garuda Indonesia Airways. Wiweko recognized that Garuda Indonesia still had limitations in many areas’ finances, personnel, and especially its fleet, which at that time consisted of only 17 Dakota DC-3s, eight Convair 340s, three Lockheed Electras, three Convair 990-As, and a single DC-8.
Wiweko had a vision that every large city in Indonesia should be visited by a Garuda Indonesia plane each day. But obviously it was difficult to land in 26 major cities each day with a fleet comprised of 90% propeller-driven aircraft. With this in mind, Wiweko sold the DC-8 and replaced it with 12 Fokker F-27s. His reasoning was that the turboprop Fokker F-27s would make it easier for Garuda Indonesia’s pilots to make the transition to Fokker F-28s. But as the market continued to develop, even these were not enough, and so in 1969-1970 Garuda Indonesia bought turbofan (jet) engine Fokker F 28s.
In anticipation of the arrival of the Fokker F-28s, Garuda Indonesia started preparing ground crew and air crew, and sent eight pilot candidates to Amsterdam for training, along with two copilot candidates and an engineer. Their abilities were quite good, and they were certified as Fokker F-28 pilot captains on completion of the training.
In August 1971, the first plane was flown to Indonesia by one of the new Garuda Indonesia pilots, accompanied by two pilots from the aircraft factory. Taking off from Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, it stopped over in Teheran, Karachi, Calcutta, and Bangkok before finally arriving in Jakarta.
This Fokker F-28 series MK-1000 (PK-GJZ) landed at Kemayoran airport at 10 AM on 11 August. Several days later, it began a five-day tour around Indonesia to test landing strips. The route was Jakarta - Bandung - Semarang - Surabaya - Denpasar - Ujung Pandang - Kupang - Ambon - Halmahera - Manado - Gorontalo - Balikpapan – Banjarmasin - Pontianak - Tanjung Pinang - Medan - Aceh - Medan - Pekanbaru - Padang - Palembang - Jakarta. The mission was a success, as the Fokker F-28 was able to land on all the runways, even those that were grass or gravel. Following this successful trial run, commercial flights began in September of that year.
In total, 62 units of the three versions of Fokker F-28 aircraft were flown by Garuda Indonesia, owning 34 of them, was the world's biggest user of this type of plane. After the Indonesian government decided to join Garuda Indonesia and Merpati Nusantara in 1977, 17 Fokker F-28 MK-3000 were donated to Merpati Nusantara in the early 1980s.
The Fokker F-28s were the backbone of Garuda Indonesia, and played a highly significant role in the airline’s history. It was in these planes that the pilots of those days gained much of their flight experience. In 1984, its ownership of so many Fokker F-28s gained Garuda Indonesia a position as the second largest air fleet in the Asia-Pacific (after Japan Airlines), with a fleet of nearly 80 modern aircraft in that era.
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