Airlines want control of FIR to be national
JAKARTA (JP): Domestic air carriers yesterday urged legislators to encourage the government to take control of the flight information region (FIR) from Singapore as soon as Indonesia is capable to operate such a system.
"Indonesia has the capability to operate FIR itself and as such it is the government's right to approach the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) based in Montreal, Canada," secretary general of the Indonesian Air Carriers' Association (INACA) G. Benny Rungkat told Commission V of the House of Representatives here yesterday.
He said that Indonesia has plenty of well-trained air traffic controllers but yet Singapore still operates the stretch up to Riau, Pontianak in West Kalimantan and Ujungpandang in South Sulawesi.
He said that the chances are not so good for Indonesia to qualify as FIR operators, despite the fact that it operates its own communication satellites.
"I think there have been at least five seminars about FIR, but there's no measure from the Directorate General of Air Transportation to act properly," Benny said.
According to Benny, as Singapore continues to control Indonesia's air traffic, domestic carrier expenses will be costlier due to , for example, the time the planes spend waiting to land.
"I think such a practice may also have an impact on socio- political affairs, which are not INACA's concerns," he said.
INACA groups 21 firms, including six scheduled airlines, state-run Garuda Indonesia and Merpati Nusantara and private-run Sempati Air, Bouraq Airways, Mandala Airlines and Dirgantara Air Service.
Domestic routes
Meanwhile, Sempati's president Hasan M. Soedjono said that INACA members' load factors for domestic routes have been declining and will get worse because their seat capacities are growing at a faster pace than the number of passengers.
He explained that their total load factor was recorded at 63 percent in 1989, when their planes had a total seat capacity of 14.19 million seats while the number of passengers reached 8.94 million.
The total load factor decreased steadily to 54 percent last year when 10.8 million passengers used their 20.19-million-seat capacity.
The load factor is estimated to sink further this year and next to 51 percent and 49 percent respectively as the number of passengers is estimated at 11,63 million and 12.52 million while the available seats will reach 22.63 million and 25.8 million.
According to Hasan, the figure will be poorer as Indonesia will likely purchase 22 used Boeing 737-200 aircraft from Lufthansa within the next two years, while Merpati proposes to expand its fleet with more jet aircraft. Garuda, which focuses on international routes, is aiming for more domestic routes.
The government recently finalized the procurement of ten B737- 200s worth about $88 million, which will then be resold to Merpati, Bouraq, Mandala and Sempati through PT Pann Multi Finance. The government originally planned to buy 32 used Lufthansa planes, but the purchase of the other 22 was postponed due to financial problems.
Hasan said the government should keep the aviation business fair by preventing Garuda from operating more domestic routes and by opening more regional flights for them. (icn)