Govt, JICA prepare alternative airport

The limited capacity of Soekarno-Hatta International Airport has forced the government to prepare an alternative airport to accommodate the rising number of planes transporting passengers to and from Jakarta and its surrounding areas.

Airport Director of the Ministry of Transportation Ignatius Bambang Tjahjono said that at the moment the Directorate General of Air Transportation was cooperating with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in search for an appropriate location for the construction of the alternative airport.

According to Bambang, it is common for big cities throughout the world to have more than one airport. “We're also planning that. So a study to be done later on will be aimed at determining the most suitable location for the alternative airport,” Bambang said as quoted by kompas.com on Wednesday.

The government expected that the JICA study would be completed by the end of this year. Later the government will prepare stages for constructing the airport, he said.

The proposed study is apparently linked to statements for one of high-ranking officials at the International Air Transport Organization (IATA), Giovanni Bisignani, who asked for improvement of airport infrastructures in Indonesia.

Bambang said that the international airport serves 37 million passengers a year, while two other airports – Halim Perdana Kusumah and Pondok Cabe – are considered are not viable alternatives due to limited access.

“If Soekarno-Hatta is managed by state airport company PT Angkasa Pura II, the alternative airport will be entrusted to the private sector so as to create a kind of competition and improvement in services,” Bambang said.