Satar left before his term ends in March 2015 to give the new management more time to prepare for the year ahead, he told reporters on Thursday. His resignation will not hurt Garuda's operations because "the system is already working", he added.

He declined to disclose who the candidates to replace him were, or where he was going next.

The CEO submitted his resignation letter on Monday and it will have to be approved by shareholders on Friday, Garuda said in a stock exchange filing on Thursday.

In October, Satar had told Reuters he would step down within months, after a decade-long stint during which he helped repair the image of the Indonesian flag carrier and restructure its operations.

Last month, Garuda posted a net loss of $219.5 million for the nine months ended September, widening from a $15 million loss in the same period a year earlier.

But the carrier's earnings improved in the July-September period from the previous quarter after it lifted ticket prices for domestic flights to offset weakness in the rupiah.

Garuda is expected to make a smaller loss next year partly due to the sharp fall in global oil prices, Satar said, noting that a 1 cent drop in jet fuel prices would lead to savings of $17 million a year.

(Reporting by Eveline Danubrata and Cindy Silviana; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Pravin Char)

By Eveline Danubrata and Cindy Silviana