Pelni

Indonesian maritime transport company

Pelni (abbreviation of Pelayaran Nasional Indonesia, ) is the national cargo and passenger shipping company of Indonesia. Its services network spans across the Indonesian archipelago. Mainly serving as connector between bigger cities and to remote islands, Pelni plays an important role in the Indonesian transport system. Pelni is one of the few remaining economy class long distance passenger ship operators. Most of the world's well known passenger ship companies have stopped their low budget passenger services since the 1960s due to shifting trends towards air transport. Pelni's ability to survive is mostly due to monopolies on certain routes and government of Indonesia subsidies.

Under the Dutch colonial rule, Indonesian inter islands transportation was dominated by Koninklijke Paketvaart Maatschappij (KPM), founded in 1888. KPM headquarter was in Amsterdam, but daily operations were controlled from Batavia, Dutch East Indies (now Jakarta). As a newly independent republic in the late 1940s, Indonesian government decided to nationalize Dutch owned companies. The Dutch refused to give away KPM, due to its strong position as a connector of the Indonesian archipelago. KPM also played an important role in transporting Dutch logistics and military supplies during the Indonesian National Revolution. In response to Dutch refusal, on September 5, 1950, Indonesia founded PEPUSKA (Yayasan Penguasaan Pusat Kapal kapal, Centrally controlled Ships Foundation) that operates 8 ships with a total size of 4.800 Deadweight tonnage. However, due to a lack of experience and capital, PEPUSKA failed to takeover KPM's monopoly. On April 28, 1952, PEPUSKA was dissolved. Pelni (now as a company, not a foundation) was founded on the same day, with the same fleet. To bring more power, Indonesian Eximbank provided funding to buy 45 new coaster ships from western European countries. While waiting for these new ships to be produced, Pelni rented various ships from many countries across the world. Pelni also used ships looted from Japan in World War 2. These strategies proved successful, as KPM suffered from declining market share and strike workers led by Sukarno's leftist doctrine. KPM discontinued its Indonesian operation on December 3, 1957. Pelni achieved its golden era during the early 1980s to late 1990s. Under Suharto’s presidency with his Transmigration program, Pelni was the main transport to move people from Java and Sumatra to eastern regions of Indonesia, because air transport facilities were still underdeveloped. Pelni started to suffer in the 2000s, as air travel became cheaper. Some of its old ships even failed to sell to third parties, and maintaining these ships was expensive. KM Kambuna (renamed KRI Tanjung Nusanive) and KM Rinjani (renamed KRI Tanjung Fatagar (974)) was granted to the Indonesian Navy in 2004. KM Kerinci was sold in 2014. KFC Jetliner was rented to the Sri Lankan Navy between 2009 and 2012. As of 2017, no party is interested to buy KM Ganda Dewata (Ro ro ship) even as scrap. Pelni started to reform its services and management since 2012, by focusing more on tourism and cargo market, alongside improving its current low budget passenger services. Pelni began to book positive earnings since 2014.

Tol Laut (literally "Sea Toll (Road)" or "Sea Highway") is a maritime program by President Joko Widodo to improve the Indonesian logistic system through providing routine and subsidized cargo sailing across Indonesia. As of 2019, Pelni operated 7 cargo ships for this purpose. ====
Pelni operated one cattle ship, KM Camara Nusantara I, to transport cattle produced by farmers in Lesser Sunda Islands to Java. ==== Perintis ships As of 2019, Pelni owned and operated 53 perintis ships, serving 46 routes. which stopped after 1999. In 2000, Pelni also served the Bitung Davao (Philippines) route for a short period.

On January 27, 1981, Pelni's ship KMP Tampomas II was burned and sank near Masalembu Islands in the Java Sea while sailing from Port of Tanjung Priok, Jakarta to Makassar. This ship was built in 1956 by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and was planned to be scrapped but was sold to Pelni instead. Officials reported 431 people were killed. Iwan Fals and Ebiet G. Ade wrote songs about the sinking. On April 6, 2011, KM Fudi rolled over while being repaired in PT. PAL shipyard in Surabaya. Due to lack of funds, Pelni & PAL decided to abandon the ship and allowed Yala Gada, a cooperative from Indonesian Navy to scrap her on March 15, 2016.