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Jakarta Post

Hundreds of thousands leave Jakarta via land, air during long weekend

Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Tangerang, Banten, recorded its highest number of passengers on Wednesday since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak in March.

Nina Loasana (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Fri, October 30, 2020

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Hundreds of thousands leave Jakarta via land, air during long weekend Police officers manage traffic on the Cikampek toll road in Karawang, West Java, on Oct. 28. (Antara/M. Ibnu Chazar)

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akarta airports and toll roads have been crowded with travelers as hundreds of thousands of Jakartans are expected to leave the capital during the five-day weekend from Oct. 28 to Nov. 1.

According to state-owned toll road operator PT Jasa Marga, 509,140 vehicles left Jakarta between Tuesday and Thursday through toll roads. The figure was based on the number of vehicles passing the Cikampek and Kalihurip toll gate in the east of the capital, the Ciawi gate in the south as well as Cikupa in the west.

Around 50 percent of the vehicles were heading east, while 28 and 22 percent others were going west and south, respectively.

“We have seen a 40 percent increase in the number of toll road users since the start of the long weekend [on Wednesday],” Jasa Marga spokesperson Dwimawan Heru said in a statement on Friday.

The Cikampek gate saw the highest spike with a 143,820 increase in vehicles – up 80 percent from the normal days. Meanwhile, around 110,000 vehicles were also recorded passing through the Ciawi gate before they continued their trips to Puncak in Bogor, West Java.

Read also: Regions must prevent COVID-19 spread during long weekend: Minister Terawan

Meanwhile, Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Tangerang, Banten, recorded its highest number of passengers on Wednesday since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak in March.

Airport operator Angkasa Pura II president director Muhammad Awaluddin, said 64,021 passengers took more than 600 flights from Soekarno-Hatta at the beginning of the extended weekend.

“That was the highest number since the pandemic started,” he said on Friday as quoted by kompas.com.

Awaluddin said the company also recorded an increase in the number of passengers in 19 other airports it managed, including Husein Sastranegara International Airport in Bandung, West Java; Supado Airport in Pontianak, West Kalimantan; and Sultan Iskandar Muda Airport in Aceh.

According to Angkasa Pura II, 110,540 passengers and 1,069 flights took off on Wednesday.

Read also: October's long weekend, next test for Indonesia's COVID-19 control efforts: Epidemiologist

Ngurah Rai International Airport in Bali also recorded a spike in the number of passengers arriving on the resort island since Oct. 25.

The national COVID-19 task force had urged the public to spend the extended weekend at home to prevent COVID-19 transmission amid concerns over a reemergence of holiday clusters.

Health authorities recorded an increase in daily and weekly COVID-19 cases during the Idul Fitri break from May 22 to 25 and during the long weekend to commemorate Independence Day in August.

The country has confirmed 406,945 COVID-19 cases with 13,782 deaths and 334,295 recoveries as of Friday.

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