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harmed by lucrative budget airfares, a surge of passengers has put pressure on Juanda International Airport in the East Java provincial capital of Surabaya.

The airport is overloaded, even though it only opened for operation on Nov. 7, 2006, state-owned airport management firm PT Angkasa Pura I executive Trikora Harjo said, adding that passenger volume has increased at a rate of 7-10 percent each year. Some 8.8 million passengers used the airport in 2008, and the figure rose to 10.6 million last year, he said.

“We estimate the number of passengers will rise to 11.1 million this year. The situation is far beyond expectations, because the airport was only designed to accommodate 6.5 million passengers a year,” Trikora told The Jakarta Post.

The circumstances have been blamed for frequent delays, such as last month, when a Batavia Air Surabaya-Jakarta flight was delayed for three hours. The airline staff provided meals for passengers who anxiously tried to access other flights. However, this sort of delay, Trikora said, clearly upset both passengers and airline staff, and it wasn’t the first of its kind.

“This situation is affecting an increasing number of passengers because many airlines have opened routes with cheaper prices,” he said.

Air Asia recently launched a Surabaya-Bangkok (Thailand) route four times a week, and a Surabaya-Penang (Malaysia) route three times a week.

The airline offers Rp 150,000 airfares for Surabaya-Bangkok and Rp 100,000 for Surabaya-Penang. It also provides free trips for customers who hold certain credit cards, Air Asia Indonesia corporate communication director Audrey Progastama Petriny said.

Opening new routes and providing cheaper airfares is all part of a commitment to improving customer service, Batavia Air Surabaya district manager James Tony Lumowa said, adding, however, that flight delays were normally caused by technical problems.

“We always compensate our customers if there is a delay, but we also hope airport management will continue to improve service by adding more facilities to accommodate the number of passengers, which keeps rising every year,” James said.

Agung Yoga Pratama, a frequent flyer from Surabaya, said the long lines to buy plane tickets at Juanda airport usually happen in the morning.

“We’re not only tired of scalpers and waiting in line to buy tickets, but we’re also tired of waiting inside the hot and crowded waiting room, which is very uncomfortable,” he said.

The passenger surge was not the only problem, Angkasa Pura operational manager Bahar Ilyas said.

The major source of stress is the heavy flight traffic at the airport, which peaks in the morning when 30 to 35 flights leave each hour between 7 a.m. and 10 a.m. After that an average of 25 flights leave the airport every hour, he said.

“Ideally, Juanda airport can only accommodate 20 hourly departures,” Bahar said.

Provincial legislator Jalaluddin Alham said that East Java Governor Soekarwo is currently discussing plans for airport expansion, which may include reviving the old Juanda airport.

“We support the governor’s plan to bring the old airport back into operation in 2011. Currently, the former airport is used as a Navy base and is host to an airline company,” he said without elaborating on the airline’s name.

Currently, Juanda airport’s area encompasses 473.3 hectares, double the size of the old airport, and maintains a 3,000-meter runway. The East Java provincial administration plans to extend the airport’s runway by reclaiming a portion of the Timur Sedati coastal area.