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Remote area flights yet to fulfill ICAO standards: Official
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Transportation Ministry secretary-general Sugihardjo speaks on March 1 at a technical coordination meeting in Tarakan, North Kalimantan. Bambang PJ (kompas.com/Bambang PJ)
T
he Transportation Ministry has stated that the majority of the country's penerbangan perintis, or “pioneer flights”, which refers to small aircraft flying to remote areas, have not fulfilled the flight safety standards of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).
Meeting the ICAO standards was particularly difficult, because many airstrips that serve remote area flights were not equipped with aviation safety equipment, Transportation Ministry secretary-general Sugihardjo said on Thursday, reported kompas.com.
“It is a dilemma. We need to pay serious attention to the issue so that these ‘pioneer flights’ can fulfill safety standards,” Sugihardjo said during a technical coordination meeting in Tarakan, North Kalimantan.
The number of remote area routes had increased to 219 this year from 188 routes in 2017, said Sugihardjo, although the government subsidy for remote area flights had decreased to Rp 480 billion (US$34.89 million) this year from Rp 568 billion in 2017.
Antara reported earlier that these “pioneer flights” mostly serve Papua with 109 routes, followed by West Papua with 18 routes and Aceh and North Kalimantan with 10 routes each.
Other remote area flights serve 26 routes in Sumatra and Java: North Sumatra (five), West Sumatra (two) Bengkulu (three), Riau (three), the Riau Islands (seven), Bangka Belitung (one), Jambi (one), Central Java (one) and East Java (three). They also serve 20 routes in Kalimantan and Sulawesi: West Kalimantan (four), East Kalimantan (six), Central Kalimantan (four), South Kalimantan (one), South Sulawesi (four) and Central Sulawesi (one). The 16 additional routes to eastern Indonesia consist of five in East Nusa Tenggara, three in North Maluku and eight in Maluku. (bbn)
