Sempati Air

Sempati Air was an airline based in Indonesia. Partially owned by friends and family of President Suharto of Indonesia, the airline folded due to bankruptcy after his May 1998 resignation.

History

Sempati Air, IATA Code: SG ICAO Code: SSR
Callsign: Spirow was founded in December 1968 under the name PT Sempati Air Transport and began flights in March of the following year using Douglas DC-3 aircraft. In the beginning it did not offer scheduled services, instead it offered transportation for oil company workers, but soon thereafter more DC-3s were purchased and the Fokker F27 "Friendship' was introduced and scheduled flights to Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Manila were begun.

In 1975 a Boeing 707 was bought for flights between Jakarta and Tokyo but the route was turned over to Garuda by the Indonesian government. After 1977 the DC-3s were phased out in favor of mote F27s. Sempati Air could not acquire other type of aircraft because the government placed restrictions on private airlines against buying new equipment and it was not until the mid-to-late 1980s that the Fokker 100 and the Boeing 737-200 were introduced.

Soon the Airbus A300B4 was introduced and regional flights to other points in Southeast Asia and Australia began. Then in 1996 the name was changed to Sempati Air. By 1998 Indonesia was suffering a financial crisis which affected Sempati Air and all the international flights were discontinued. Many aircraft were sold or returned to the lessors but those measures were not enough and by June 1998 Sempati Air was out of business. [Airlines Remembered by BI Hengi, Publisher Midland Publishing]

Historical Fleet

External links

* [http://www.airlineroutemaps.com/East_Asia/Sempati_Air_indonesia.shtml Sempati Air Route Map]
* [http://www.airliners.net/search/photo.search?airlinesearch=Sempati%20Air&distinct_entry=true Airliners Net photos]
* [http://www.planespotters.net/Airline/Sempati-Air Fleet Details at Planespotters.net]
* [http://www.timetableimages.com/ttimages/sg.htm Timetable images]
* [http://aviation-safety.net/database/operator/airline.php?var=5381 Accident Incident reports]
* [http://www.airdisaster.com/cgi-bin/view_details.cgi?date=07171997&reg=PK-YPM&airline=Sempati+Air F27 Accident Report]

References