T

he newly established state-owned Indonesian Flight Navigation Service (PPNPI), also known as AirNav Indonesia, plans to increase the navigation fee up to 200 percent in the near future to better improve navigation services in Indonesian airspace.

AirNav Indonesia president director Ichwanul Idrus said that the plan was being discussed by the firm’s internal team and officials from the State-Owned Enterprises Ministry and the Transportation Ministry.

“We have not decided on when we are going to increase the fee because we are currently discussing every detail of this plan. Besides, the navigation charge in Indonesia is one of the lowest in the world,” Ichwanul told The Jakarta Post.

Contacted separately, the Indonesian National Air Carriers Association (INACA) secretary-general Tengku Burhanudin said that the increased fee would affect the ceiling price of airfares for scheduled flights.

“It will certainly increase the ceiling price of airfares and other components. Even though it may not be significant, the price adjustment will be inevitable,” he said.

Tengku was disappointed with AirNav Indonesia’s plan. He said that as a new firm, they should be focusing their attention on developing programs and human resources.

“They should have had a better program for development before increasing the navigation tariff. They should prove that they are working well and improving the [navigation] system before making a decision that will affect airlines and passengers,” he told the Post.

Ichwanul, meanwhile, added that Indonesia is charging only 65 US cents per mile for every aircraft, operated by both domestic and international airlines that fly in the country’s controlled airspace.

Meanwhile, neighboring countries such as Malaysia and Australia charge three times and six times the fee in Indonesia, respectively, at the moment.

“Sometimes the [state run airport operator] Angkasa Pura gives a discount to the customers. They could charge every aircraft only 55 [US] cents per mile,” he said, adding that he did not know the reason behind the discount.

He said that AirNav Indonesia received very strong support from the government to increase the fee, saying that the Transportation Ministry’s air transportation directorate general has recently issued a letter of notification to the firm to not give deductions over the current tariff.

The firm was going to promote the new fares to the operators as soon as a final decision was made, he added.

In addition, he said that the firm needs more investment to further improve its navigation system, especially in the next two years when all of the technical operation unit (UPT) airports that are currently managed by the Transportation Ministry should be included in the national single navigation system. “We will need more investment to upgrade the navigation instrument at UPT airports because their system should be on a par with E-JAATS [Emergency-Jakarta Automated Air Traffic System] and MATSC [Makassar Air Traffic Service Center],” he went on.

Out of 233 airports operating in the country, 168 of them are UPT airports.