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n a bid to accommodate surging demand in the air travel market, state-owned airport company PT Angkasa Pura I (AP I) is set to expand three crowded airports in Semarang, Central Java; Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan; and Surabaya, East Java, over the next five years.

Angkasa Pura I, the company that manages airports in the country'€™s eastern areas, is now assessing the planned projects.

AP I president director Tommy Soetomo said that the company was currently finishing studies for each project and they planned to team up with international partners to build better airport facilities.

'€œWe plan to finish all the studies by the end of this year because we have to keep up with the economic growth and rising demand from
customers,'€ Tommy said in Jakarta on Monday on the sidelines of the Airports Marketing Forum 2013.

'€œWe plan to build at least a new terminal in each airport and they should be ready in the next five years.'€

The increasing market demand can be seen from the rising number of passengers passing through the airports each year.

Traffic at Syamsuddin Noor Airport in Banjarmasin, for instance, reached almost 4.5 million passengers in 2012, an 11 percent increase from the previous year.

In the next five years, the figure is expected to reach 10 to 12 million passengers, he said.

'€œThrough this forum, we want to invite business partners to work with us in developing our airports. In addition to that, our airports are gateways for both business and
leisure activities, creating more opportunities [for the partners] to better explore Indonesia,'€ he said.

He also said that the firm wanted to make Juanda International Airport in Surabaya, into a hub for business and leisure activities by building a new runway, hangar and business complex in the future.

As a first step, he said that AP I was collaborating in a hotel business with France-based brand Accor.

The firm has recently opened the Ibis Budget Surabaya Airport Hotel with 144 rooms and small meeting rooms.

The firm would collaborate with South Korea'€™s Incheon Airport to develop Juanda, he added.

In addition, AP I corporate secretary Farid Indra Nugraha said that they had just finished a study on Achmad Yani Airport in Semarang.

Farid said that the firm would need to invest around Rp 1.1 trillion (US$112.2 million) to build a new terminal at the airport.

'€œWe plan to build a terminal to increase the capacity to 10 million passengers. We are currently waiting for approval from the military because the land belongs to them,'€ he said, adding that the total annual capacity of Achmad Yani was currently 5 million passengers.

Moreover, he said that the development of Ngurah Rai International Airport in Denpasar, Bali was on track and the new international terminal was expected to commence operations in September, a month before the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting.

The development of the 285-hectare airport, which costs the firm Rp 2.7 trillion, is aimed at boosting its capacity from 9 million passengers to 25 million annually.

The project, which began in May last year, will double the size of the airport'€™s international terminal to 130,000 square meters (sqm) from 65,800 sqm, while the domestic terminal will be five times larger from the previous 13,000 sqm to 65,800 sqm.

A new apron able to accommodate up to 20 wide-bodied aircraft such as the Boeing 747 and Airbus A380 and a terminal for private aircraft passengers in partnership with ExecuJet Aviation Group from Switzerland, are also being built.