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Jakarta Post

Lion needs permit to get its '€˜used'€™ tires

Lion Air, the country’s largest domestic carrier, has not yet managed to secure a special permit from the Trade Ministry to take possession of imported retreaded airplane tires, forcing the Customs and Excise Office at Tanjung Priok Port to impound the tires

Nurfika Osman (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Thu, October 24, 2013

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Lion needs permit to get its '€˜used'€™ tires

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ion Air, the country'€™s largest domestic carrier, has not yet managed to secure a special permit from the Trade Ministry to take possession of imported retreaded airplane tires, forcing the Customs and Excise Office at Tanjung Priok Port to impound the tires.

A spokeswoman for the customs office, Finari Manan, said Lion Air had not presented a Prohibitions and Restrictions Permit (Lartas), as mandated by Trade Ministerial Decree No. 77/2012 on importing retreaded goods, forcing the office to temporarily hold onto the used tires.

Only two containers of the total seven imported have been allowed to leave the port.

'€œWe are unable to release the tires from the port without this special permit. This is one of several required documents that need to be attained,'€ Finari told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

'€œWe understand that the carrier needs the tires for their flight operations; we are simply following the regulation. The tires will be cleared to leave the port as soon as all the documents are received.'€

According to Finari, her office had checked the tires and concluded that they were retreaded. Therefore, they needed a special permit to be released from the port.

She said her office had also received 300 new tires for Lion Air from the Bridgestone factory in Hong Kong, almost half of which had been released since last week. '€œWe are now communicating with the airline so that everything will run smoothly and all of their tires can exit the port,'€ she continued.

Last week, Lion Air planes set to depart from Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Cenkareng, Banten, west of Jakarta, to Padang in West Sumatra; Makassar, South Sulawesi; Surabaya, East Java and Batam, Riau Islands, were delayed for up to five hours as the carrier had an insufficient supply of spare tires at the airport. Around 1,200 passengers were affected, forcing Lion to pay total compensation of Rp 3 billion (US$267,000), in accordance with Transportation Ministry Regulation No. 77/2011 on airline responsibility.

Separately, Lion Air general affairs director Edward Sirait said the carrier was currently seeking approval from the Trade Ministry to obtain their retreaded tires.

He said he hoped the necessary permit would be issued immediately.

'€œWe were given a recommendation letter from the [Transportation Ministry'€™s] air transportation directorate general last week so that we can get the permit as soon as possible,'€ he told the Post.

He admitted that the airline had contributed somewhat to its current predicament as it had not anticipated the surge in demand during the recent Idul Adha holiday, which lasted for five days.

Transportation Ministry spokesman Bambang S. Ervan said the use of retreaded tires in the aviation sector and other transportation modes was common practice.

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