Despite numerous complaints about its meager services, Soekarno-Hatta International Airport is good at one thing: Punctuality. Luxury travel news portal Forbestraveler.com has announced that the airport is the second most on-time international airport worldwide according to data from FlightStats, an Oregon-based company that tracks flight information for airports and airlines around the world.
The portal ranked Soekarno-Hatta below reigning champion, Tokyo's Haneda Airport, and above Narita, which came in third. The data defined an on-time airport as one having the most flights less than 15 minutes late. The same yardstick is used by the Geneva-based Airports Council International. The study, which included 50 of the busiest airports in the world, took data from Aug. 1, 2008, to July 31, 2009.
The portal's report called Soekarno-Hatta this year's most improved airport on its top ten as it "jumped from last year's sixth slot thanks to an impressive 84.2 percent on-time arrivals and 89.2 percent on-time departures." Arrival and departure flights were 79.3 percent and 86.3 percent on-time, respectively, last year.
Your comments:
I took Garuda Indonesia to Sydney via Bali last time and got delayed for 12 hours and they only gave me nasi goreng with slices of fried egg. I think the rating is rather vague.
Rendi
Jakarta
Honestly, I'm quite amazed that Soekarno-Hatta Airport, from which I often depart/arrive (and with which I have been disappointed in many ways), is able to achieve such a reputation internationally. Being reputed to have punctual flights is a good thing, let's just hope that the other "meager services" will improve soon too (though, I have to admit, I'm a little pessimistic).
Iqbal Kurniawan
Jakarta
Cool, I hope the Indonesian people are able to always be on time too, for any activity.
Lunyka Adelina
Bandung
Is not aircraft departure punctuality as much a measure of airline efficiency as the airport itself?
I suspect that this punctuality applies only to international flights, as in my experience, Jakarta's domestic airlines provide less than 50 percent on-time departures. But to be fair, the immigration service at Jakarta airport is vastly superior to that of Denpasar, where arriving passengers are often left waiting for more than two hours.
Evan Jones
Batam, Riau Island
I was impressed by the punctuality rating of Jakarta airport. We just hope the government improves the airport and its transport infrastructure too, so it can handle millions more passengers and leave a good impression.
Aisyah
Makassar
Great, "having the most flights less than 15 minutes late", but what about the long wait at the baggage claim? What about the long queues to clear the customs scanning/inspection of the baggage and hand luggage?
Keith
Jakarta
