Airlines Accelerate Expansion Of Flight Connectivity

JAKARTA, July 5 (Antara) - As an island country, Indonesia has to expand its flight routes, apart from developing further its sea transportation system, to increase its connectivity and boost its tourism development. State-owned airport operator PT Ankasa Pura I continues to encourage airlines operating at 13 airports under its management to expand flight routes as part of the effort to accelerate connectivity and develop tourism in the country. Since early this year, until now, a number of airlines have expanded their flight services by opening 28 new routes from the airport operated by PT Angkasa Pura I. The efforts to expand connectivity have prompted several airlines to start new domestic flights such as what was done by Garuda Indonesia recently. The state-owned flag carrier is taking anticipatory steps in order to benefit from future economic development. Lately, apart from Garuda, airlines, such as Indonesia Air Transport, Batik Air, and Wings Air, have aggressively started new domestic flights to expand services on routes in eastern Indonesian provinces and regions, such as Sulawesi, Maluku, and Papua. Garuda Indonesia will serve a flight from Hasanuddin Makassar Airport, South Sulawesi to Sugimanuru Muna Airport, Southeast Sulawesi. "If there is no obstacle, in the near future we will start Makassar-Muna flight," Garuda's VP of Kalimantan, Sulawesi and Papua areas, I Wayan Supatrayasa, said after attending the Baubau-Kendari first flight landing on Monday (July 3). "There are three districts in Muna namely Muna Island, West Muna and Central Buton. This is one of our considerations to open the new route," Supatrayasa said, adding that the district administration is very supportive of the flight service. Garuda opened the new route based on the decision taken by the management and approved by the Director General of Civil Aviation related to the feasibility of the route. "This route will certainly increase connectivity in eastern Indonesia, especially in Sulawesi," he said. Besides Garuda, low-cost carrier Lion Air has also opened a new flight route from Hang Nadim International Airport in Batam (Riau Islands Province) to Bandar Lampung (Lampung Province, which would serve passengers once a day. "This afternoon, Lion Air has officially served Batam-Lampung route," Hang Nadim airport's general manager for operation, Suwarso, said here on Monday (July 3). Previously, the route from Hang Nadim to Radin Inten II airport had been served by Garuda Indonesia and Sriwijaya Air. "The flight from Batam to Bandar Lampung is expected to take 45 minutes. (Lion Air) will fly from Batam at 1 p.m local time. This will give more options to passengers," Suwarso noted. Lion Air management had previously planned to increase its flights from Batam to Pontianak in West Kalimantan, but the airport management is yet to get confirmation on the plan. "We have no clarity on when it would be implemented," he added. Regarding flight route expansion from 13 airports operated by PT Angkasa Pura, a number of airlines have opened 28 new flight routes since early this year. Angkasa Pura I is one of the state-owned airport operators. It operates 13 airports, namely I Gusti Ngurah Rai of Bali, Juanda of Surabaya, Sultan Hasanuddin of Makassar, Sultan Aji Muhammad Sulaiman of Sepinggan Balikpapan, Frans Kaisiepo of Biak, Sam Ratulangi of Manado, Syamsudin Noor of Banjarmasin, Ahmad Yani of Semarang, Adisutjipto of Yogyakarta, Adi Soemarmo of Surakarta, Internasional Praya of Lombok, Pattimura of Ambon, and El Tari of Kupang. The opening of the new flight routes since January until early July this year is an effort to expand connectivity of air transportation and tourism development in the central and eastern regions of Indonesia. "We will continue to support the air transportation connectivity development in line with the tourism development growth through incentives and tourism initiative programs, notably through the 'Collaborative Destination Development' program," President Director of PT Angkasa Pura I Danang S Baskoro said in a written press statement on Saturday (July 1). He stated that the key to success of the tourism industry and airline business is collaborative development of the government, airlines, and airport programs. Baskoro noted that the 28 new routes included 20 domestic routes and the 8 international routes. Garuda Indonesia has opened the Manado-Gorontalo, Ambon-Kaimana, Ambon-Surabaya, and Ambon-Sorong routes. Lion Air has opened the Kinabalu-Denpasar, Balikpapan-Pontianak, Kualalumpur-Solo, Kualalumpur-Surabaya, and Surabaya-Palembang routes. Malindo Air hasopened Kualalumpur-Denpasar and Denpasar-Brisbane routes. Sriwijaya Air served the new routes of Sentani-Surabaya, Lampung-Surabaya, Lampung-Yogyakarta, Semarang-Makassar, and Makassar-Mamuju. Susi Air flies the routes of Ambon-Sanana and North Maluku. Wings Air opened the routes of Manado-Raja Ampat, Manado-Sangir, Talaud-Merauke, and Ambon-Dobo. Air Asia Indonesia has opened the routes of Kualalumpur-Lombok and Kualalumpur-Yogyakarta, while Dimonim Air flies the routes of Kisar (Maluku)-Ambon. Batik Air opened Ambon-Makassar and Ambon-Jakarta routes. The Auckland-Denpasar route was served by Air New Zealand, while the Kualalumpur-Solo and Denpasar-Narita routes were served by Air Asia. "With the opening of the new routes, we are convinced that the number of passengers up to the middle of this year will reach 90 million, up 11 percent from that in 2016 which was 83.8 million," Baskoro noted.