Livery featuring PK-GDA, Garuda Indonesia's one and only Boeing 737-8 MAX, which saw short service with the airline from December 2017 to March 2019.

The Indonesian flag carrier originally intended to replace their aging Boeing 737-800NG fleet with the then-brand new Boeing 737 MAX 8s for their fleet revitalization, with 50 orders secured for the aircraft in 2014 through the Chinese Bocomm Leasing firm. The airline would later receive its first 737 MAX, PK-GDA, in December 2017. The aircraft would see service for a couple of years, until the fatal crashes of Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, due to the MCAS software issues, practically grounded every single 737 MAX in the world in mid-2019.

After the two fatal crashes as well as the grounding, the CEO of the time, Ari Askhara, expressed his dissatisfaction with the aircraft, and went to the lengths of cancelling the remaining 49 aircraft on order outright after the groundings. That and other issues such as the US$4.9 billion order which was a burden on Garuda's already flailing economy, led to the significant decision by the infamous CEO of the airline at the time.

PK-GDA, the sole 737 MAX in Garuda's fleet, would later be stored for more than 3 years, until it too was axed from the airline's fleet entirely on July 2022, with it being returned to lessor and sent to storage in Holland for the next 2 years. The aircraft would later be leased and delivered to SmartLynx Malta in January 2024, now operating as 9H-CHA. Back in Indonesia, Garuda's fleet revitalization now centers on acquiring secondhand Boeing 737-800NGs, which also include some former Garuda aircraft that was leased to other airlines for the last several years.

To install the livery:

Simply drag and drop the "ifly-aircraft-737max8-gia-pkgda" folder in your MSFS Community content folder.

To install the aircraft-specific configuration:

• Navigate to your AppData folder by typing %AppData% in File Explorer.
• (2020) Navigate to "Roaming\Microsoft Flight Simulator\Packages\ifly-aircraft-737max8\work" (Steam) or "\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalState\packages\ifly-aircraft-737max8\work" (MS Store).
• (2024) Navigate to "\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.Limitless_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalState\WASM\MSFS2020\ifly-aircraft-737max8\work".
• Drag and drop the "iFly 737-MAX8 Garuda Indonesia PK-GDA (178Seat).ini" file.

Huge thanks to AATS for his help in some revisions of the livery.

Special thanks to Nathaniel Rusdianto/jstsomewritings for his assistance and work which I heavily referenced for this livery.

You can check his work on the P3Dv5 version of the aircraft here.

To support my work, please donate at paypal.me/fishbirb!