The Garuda Journey - Garuda Training Center（ガルだの旅行 - ガルーダ研修所）

GMT stands for Garuda Training Center. It is a place where they train evacuation when emergencies happen, training and test to those who wants to be a stewardess. Unfortunately we cannot use the evacuation simulation because there were people having test inside. So, I looked around their room. There was a training there, they got a lot of mirrors, catwalk path in the middle, and they were listening to a instructor at that time. They have to learn about clothes, gestures, classes, verbal language, voice, expressions, eye contact, walk, and how to comfort and serve people in the plane. I met a young woman named Mira. She was already a stewardess. She said that it was her dream to be a stewardess. The main thing is not just giving food, but how to help and serve people. She is not scared, she reallly enjoyed it. The procedure is a little bit complex and complicated, because they have to learn the details also. And to be a stewardess is not easy, AT ALL. She had to pass the TOEFL, minimum height of 165 centimeters, have a good health, and many others. I tried the aircraft simulator, but I can't even get the plane to take off. The number of buttons and the number of information which needs to be processed is overwhelming.

The Garuda Journey - GMF Aeroasia（ガルだの旅行 - GMF アエロアジア）

Garuda – G. M. F. Aeroasia

GMF stands for Garuda Maintenance Facility

It became a company in 2002, it has a 115 hectares of land and consists of 3 airplane hangars. All hangars are designated for aircraft maintenance. We went to hangar 2 and it is designated for simple maintenance on aircraft. A plane that enters this hanger will stay about 1 to 3 days only, since this hanger is just for simple maintenance. 3 days is the maximum duration for each plane. Hangar 3 is the heavy maintenance service special for long planes such as boeing 737.

Generally, this place is available for all domestic aircraft, there are also planes from Europe and South East Asia. This place had certificates from FAA and SAA, which is known almost all over the world. It is also included the biggest Top 10 in Indonesia.

Apron is a name for plane parking lot. From a worker we interviewed there, he said that this company will do the best to serve the best maintenance and quality. They got the spare parts from French and Europe. Every 6 years, their stuff will be checked up. There were no doubt that working there was hard, but he liked it. “It was tiring, but fun”, he said.

There, we looked planes from near, we went inside and sat in the cockpit. I saw tons of aircraft equipment and instruments in the cockpit. Being a pilot requires harsh qualifications, the most notable one being to have a perfect 20/20 vision. Other than that, the person must qualify physical and mental tests