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ASEAN open skies create huge market for aviation industry
The airline industry expects the Southeast Asian market to become ever more important in the near future with the implementation of the ASEAN open skies policy and economic integration, an airline executive has said.
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An Airbus A330-300 (left) and Boeing 777-300ER are parked at the Garuda Maintenance Facility’s hangar in Cengkareng, Tanggerang, on Feb. 1. The state carrier signed an MoU with Airbus and Boeing to restructure its planes to better compete in the ASEAN market. (TEMPO/Tony Hartawan)
T
he airline industry expects the Southeast Asian market to become ever more important in the near future with the implementation of the ASEAN open-skies policy and economic integration, an airline executive has said.
ASEAN’s open-skies policy removes tariffs and carriers are free to operate across the ASEAN market, Air Asia CEO Tony Fernandes said. Intra-ASEAN travel will create huge revenues for airlines as was the case in the European market.
“There are problems in Europe as well, bureaucracy, social systems, but every economic union has created great wealth for the countries involved,” Fernandes said on Monday during a discussion staged as part of the 33rd-anniversary celebration of The Jakarta Post.
Fernandez said 879 million travelers within the EU, 106 million from Europe’s top-six countries, contributed EUR91 billion to the GDP of the member countries.
“There is not much difference between ASEAN and the EU, in terms of population,” Fernandes asserted.
“The EU’s population is 508 million, served by 4,350 planes, compared with 1,600 planes in ASEAN, it is expected Europe will have 8,010 planes by 2032 and there will be 3,490 in Southeast Asia,” he said.
Fernandes predicted that there would be 95,000 pilots and 101,000 technicians by 2034.
Garuda Indonesia expected tight competition among the region’s flag carriers in the ASEAN market, with perhaps a narrower gap between full-flight services and the low-cost services in ASEAN.(dan)
