T

he Transportation Ministry has allocated around Rp 300 billion (US$26.3 million) to subsidize airlines serving 170 new pioneer routes this year, as part of the government's program to provide access to isolated parts of the country.

Transportation Ministry director general for air transportation Herry Bakti Gumay said on Thursday the budget would be used in subsidizing the fuel for airlines that had won the tender to serve the subsidized flights.

Herry said the airlines that won the tender, including Susi Air, private airline Trigana Air and Aviastar, would only have to pay for one-third of the fuel they needed in serving the routes, while the rest would be paid by the government.

'The tender process of the new routes has been 80 percent completed, so the routes will all soon be operated,' Herry told reporters, citing the new routes were not including the 19 routes served by the now defunct state-owned carrier PT Merpati Airlines offered by the ministry in January.

Almost 60 percent of the routes will serve eastern parts of the country and most of the routes are those that are not accessible via land. The ministry said with the new routes, it was expected it would ease people's commute as well as ease the flow of goods and services across the nation.

Trigana Air operational director Beni Sumaryanto said the airline would serve several new pioneering routes in Papua.

'We have existed in Papua since 1996 and we will still focus our operations in the area,' he said.

The airline's current routes include Jayapura (Papua)-Wamena (Papua), Banjarmasin (South Kalimantan)-Berau (East Kalimantan), Ketapang-Pangkalan Bun (West Kalimantan), Ketapang-Pontianak (West Kalimantan) and Surakarta (Central Java)-Berau.

PT ASI Pudjiastuti Aviation (Susi Air) CEO and owner Susi Pudjiastuti said the airline had won the tender to serve several new routes in Sumatra, Kalimantan and Papua.

'Some of the new routes have commenced the operation in January and some will start to serve the routes next week,' Susi said.

The several new routes won by the airlines include Bengkulu-Pulau Enggano (Bengkulu), Bengkulu-Muara Bungo (Jambi) and Bengkulu-Krui (West Lampung).

The airline will use the Cessna 208B Grand Caravan with a capacity of 12 passengers to serve the new routes.

The airline now flies its passengers to 162 destinations nationwide on a range of 49 aircraft, including the Cessna Grand Caravan C208B, a Piaggio Avanto II P180, a Pilatus Porter PC-6, an Agusta Grand A109S, an Agusta Grand AW119Ke, a Diamond Twin Star DA42, and an Air Tractor AT802 based in Sumatra, Java,East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), Kalimantan, Sulawesi and Papua.