Indonesia commissions first aircraft carrier KRI Sriwijaya to strengthen presence near Malacca Strait.

Indonesia officially commissioned its first aircraft carrier, the KRI Sriwijaya-100, at Tanjung Priok Port in Jakarta after acquiring the former Italian Navy vessel Giuseppe Garibaldi. The 180.2-meter ship provides the Indonesian Navy with a sovereign floating command platform designed to expand regional power projection, enhance fleet air defense, and support humanitarian response across maritime chokepoints.

The newly inducted carrier displaces approximately 13,850 tonnes at full load and is configured with a 174-meter flight deck featuring a 4-degree ski-jump to support helicopter and vertical-landing aviation operations. Acquired via a government-to-government grant, the vessel relies on four General Electric LM2500 gas turbines delivering a top speed exceeding 30 knots and an economical range of 7,000 nautical miles.

Related topic: Former Italian aircraft carrier Giuseppe Garibaldi departs for Indonesia after final flag lowering

Indonesia commissioned the former Italian Navy aircraft carrier Giuseppe Garibaldi (C 551) as KRI Sriwijaya (100), its first aircraft carrier, at Tanjung Priok in North Jakarta on September 24, 2026, six days after the ship finished its journey from Italy. (Picture source: Indonesian Navy)

On September 24, 2026, Indonesia commissioned the former Italian Navy Giuseppe Garibaldi as its first aircraft carrier, the KRI Sriwijaya-100, at Tanjung Priok, with Colonel Mochamad Fuad Hasan commanding 399 personnel. The name Sriwijaya refers to the Srivijaya maritime kingdom, centered around present-day Palembang in South Sumatra and influential across regional sea routes from roughly the 7th to 13th centuries. Indonesian Navy Chief Admiral Muhammad Ali said the name was selected because Srivijaya represented one of the oldest major maritime powers of the Indonesian archipelago; the Navy now uses the name to commemorate Indonesia's maritime history and Srivijaya’s former influence over trade routes such as the Strait of Malacca.

The ship reached Jakarta on September 18 after leaving Taranto on August 24 and sailing through the Suez Canal, Red Sea, and Indian Ocean, before entering Indonesian waters with KRI Brawijaya-320 and KRI Prabu Siliwangi-321 as escorts. Laid down in 1981, commissioned by Italy in 1985, and retired in 2024, the carrier was transferred free of charge, but Indonesia faces about €54 million in transfer expenditure, and €350 to €818 million for refurbishment, before aircraft, weapons, ammunition, infrastructure, fuel, spares, and recurring maintenance are counted. Jakarta had separately approved financing ceilings of $450 million for the carrier and associated equipment, $250 million for transport helicopters and $300 million for utility helicopters, potentially investing $1 billion for the wider carrier and aviation program. 

The Sriwijaya/Giuseppe Garibaldi measures 180.2 m long and roughly 33 m across its widest section, with a full-load displacement of 13,850 tonnes that reached about 14,150 tonnes following its 2003 modernization. Its flight deck is roughly 174 m long and 30 m wide, providing 5,220 m² of nominal deck area with a 4-degree ski-jump. Four GE/Avio LM2500 gas turbines deliver 60,400 kW (81,000 hp) through two shafts, producing 30 knots and a 7,000 nmi (13,000 km) range at 20 knots. Six 1,560 kW diesel generators provide 9.36 MW of electrical generation, a more important modernization constraint than the ship's propulsion because new radars, electronic warfare systems, UAV control stations, satellite communications, servers, and tropical cooling must all draw from this capacity.

The 6,870 nmi voyage from Italy was equivalent to 98.1% of the ship's quoted 7,000 nmi economical range, although the transit included logistics support. The former Italian air group provides a measurable benchmark for what the ship can support. The Garibaldi normally embarked 8 to 12 AV-8B Harrier II or II Plus VTOL jets and 4 to 6 helicopters, with maximum configurations of 16 Harriers or 18 helicopters and roughly 12 aircraft accommodated inside the hangar. During an 87-day Afghanistan deployment in November 2001, its Harriers flew 288 missions and 860 hours while the carrier sailed about 20,000 nmi without a technical port call, equivalent to 3.31 missions and 9.89 flight hours per day.

During 78 consecutive days at sea for Libya operations in 2011, the aircraft carrier generated 173 sorties, more than 1,200 flight hours and over 140 weapon releases, equivalent to 2.22 sorties, more than 15.38 flight hours and at least 1.79 flight hours per sortie per day across the deployment. These figures are more useful than nominal aircraft capacity because they quantify the sustained output previously supported by the flight deck, hangar, aviation fuel, magazines, maintenance organization and up to 180 aviation personnel. Indonesia must also decide how much of the Garibaldi's former combat capability to regenerate or replace. Its Italian configuration included MM/SPS-768 RAN-3L, SPS-774/RAN-10S and AN/SPS-52C air surveillance radars, SPS-702 surface-search radar, SPN-728 aircraft-approach radar, three RTN-30X and three RTN-20X fire-control radars, plus the WASS DMS-2000 sonar.

Armament included two eight-cell Mk 29 launchers with 16 ready Aspide or Sea Sparrow missiles, three twin 40 mm DARDO mounts and two triple 324 mm torpedo launchers, supported by SLQ-732 electronic warfare equipment, two SCLAR decoy launchers and AN/SLQ-25 Nixie. Four Otomat Mk 2 anti-ship missile launchers had already been removed in 2003. Replacing aging radar, IFF, electronic warfare, combat management, communications and point-defense equipment would consequently require new antenna foundations, consoles, cable routes, cooling, power conversion and internal equipment space rather than a simple electronics replacement. The financial ratio illustrates why modernization scope matters more than the free hull. The Garibaldi retained an Italian accounting value of €54.02 million, costed about €5 million annually to maintain inactive, and had an estimated €18.7 million dismantlement cost.

Indonesia's €350 million lower refurbishment estimate equals 6.48 times that accounting value, while €818 million equals 15.14 times it and 43.74 times the dismantlement estimate. The €468 million difference between the two refurbishment cases alone equals 8.66 times the former accounting value. Indonesia has separately estimated refurbishment near Rp7.5 trillion, including the tropicalization of air conditioning, medical spaces and other support facilities, with PT PAL and Fincantieri expected to participate and Leonardo equipment contemplated. Even the €872 million upper transfer-plus-refit figure excludes the air group, aviation weapons, LM2500 fuel supply, depot maintenance, aircraft spares, software support and future dockyard periods. Hull condition creates an equally measurable risk.

The Garibaldi underwent modernization in 2003, and a major overhaul in 2013 in which more than 30,000 kg of steel and 4,880 m of piping were replaced, 29,348 m³ of tanks were cleaned, 5,200 m² of hull surface was treated, and 4,400 m² of flight deck was recoated. The deck work covered 84.3% of the nominal 5,220 m² flight-deck area. Admiral Muhammad Ali has suggested Indonesia could seek another 15–20 years of operation for the carrier, which would place its final retirement around 2041 to 2046 and make the hull approximately 60–65 years old from its 1981 laying down. The relevant metric will therefore be annual availability: a 15-year extension provides 5,475 calendar days, but every major dockyard period, machinery failure, or structural repair directly reduces the number of deployable days obtained from the refurbishment investment.

Maintaining piping, tanks, auxiliary machinery, electrical distribution, and increasingly obsolete components will occur simultaneously with integrating new aviation and combat equipment. Manpower adds another fixed cost. Italy could operate the Garibaldi with up to 830 personnel, including about 550 ship's company, 180 aviation personnel, and 100 command staff, while Indonesia commissioned Sriwijaya with 400 personnel. A 500-person basic Indonesian complement would already be 2.46 times the roughly 203 personnel associated with the Thaon di Revel-class offshore patrol vessel KRI Brawijaya-320, while an 830-person configuration would be 4.09 times larger. Indonesia must additionally generate flight-deck handlers, aircraft maintainers, aviation fuel and weapons teams, controllers, helicopter and UAV crews, and shore technicians.

Ratai Bay in Lampung is being adapted with channel work, heavy-duty mooring, and increased shore electrical capacity, with carrier berthing construction having reached 76% in July 2026. The personnel requirement therefore extends beyond the embarked crew to the base, aviation squadrons, training organization, and maintenance infrastructure needed to keep one carrier deployable. The proposed Bayraktar TB3 component, nevertheless, could change the Garibaldi's output more fundamentally than its classification suggests. Indonesian planning encompasses 60 navalized TB3 UAVs and nine Akinci-class systems across the wider program, not 69 aircraft assigned to the KRI Sriwijaya. TB3 folding wings and shipboard ski-jump operations make the UAV compatible in principle with a 174 m deck and 4-degree ramp, while its smaller footprint could allow more unmanned aircraft to be spotted than the historical Italian air wing.

The limiting factors would instead become control stations, satellite and line-of-sight datalinks, server capacity, intelligence processing, maintenance personnel, weapons handling and the ship's 9.36 MW electrical plant. A useful post-refit assessment should therefore measure mission-capable aircraft aboard, simultaneous airborne UAVs, sorties and flight hours per 24 hours, sustained days at sea, annual deployable days and maintenance days. Those metrics would show whether the reactivation has allowed Indonesia to become the second Southeast Asian state operating an aircraft carrier after Thailand, rather than simply providing Indonesia with a 5,220 m² flight deck capable of accommodating aircraft.

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Written by Jérôme Brahy

Jérôme Brahy is a defense analyst and documentalist at Army Recognition. He specializes in naval modernization, aviation, drones, armored vehicles, and artillery, with a focus on strategic developments in the United States, China, Ukraine, Russia, South Korea, Türkiye, and Belgium. His analyses go beyond the facts, providing context, identifying key actors, and explaining why defense news matters on a global scale.