Garuda Indonesia Colombo, Bombay, and Prague. Rome and Paris became the airline's third and fourth European destinations, with flights stopping in Bombay and Cairo to refuel. Flights to the People's Republic of China began that same year, with service to Canton via Phnom Penh, the first Indonesian airline to do so. During the early 1970s, Garuda Indonesia took delivery of both the McDonnell Douglas DC-9 and Fokker F28 Fellowship for its short and medium-haul operations. The airline went on to take delivery of 62 F28s, holding the title for the largest operator of the F28 in the world. In 1976, the airline
Garuda Indonesia Vishnoe's vogel, die zijn vleugels uitslaat hoog boven uw eilanden"", which means "I'm Garuda, Vishnu's Bird, that spreads its wings high above the Islands". In Hindu tradition, Garuda is the name of Lord Vishnu's mount ("vahana"). The line was mentioned by Sukarno during the Dutch–Indonesian Round Table Conference at The Hague, from 23 August to 2 November 1949. In its current institutional form, Garuda Indonesia had its beginnings in the Indonesian war of independence against the Dutch in the late 1940s, when Garuda flew special transports with a Douglas DC-3. The first aircraft was a DC-3 known as "Seulawah" (Acehnese: