The airport is expected to serve as a gateway to local tourist destinations such as Kupa Kupa Beach and as a cargo shipment center for gold miner PT Nusa Halmahera Minerals.
uabang Airport in North Halmahera, North Maluku, has reopened after the addition of a 3,500 square meter passenger terminal, which has increased its capacity to 160,000 airline passengers yearly.
The airport is expected to serve as a gateway to local tourist destinations such as Kupa Kupa Beach and as a cargo shipment center for gold miner PT Nusa Halmahera Minerals.
“Alhamdulillah [thank God] the passenger terminal is ready to use. We hope to see new sources of economic growth around this airport,” President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo said during the inauguration ceremony on Wednesday.
He also hoped the airport would resume the two regular flights it had prior to the pandemic and even add a third flight “once the situation was back to normal”.
Fewer Indonesians are flying because of the government’s COVID-19 mobility restrictions. Domestic flight passengers fell 62.88 percent year-on-year (yoy) to 2.34 million in January, according to data from Statistics Indonesia (BPS).
“People in eastern Indonesia have the same right to have good airports and roads, so these infrastructure developments are part of providing justice for all,” Jokowi added.
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