Batam not ready for foreign air cargo, airport officials say

By Johannes Simbolon

BATAM, Riau (JP): Despite a government order that all international cargo flights load and unload at Hang Nadim airport, they cannot because the airport does not have the facilities, officials said here yesterday.

Hang Nadim airport's acting head, Fuad Zarkasi, and its air operations head, Richard Marpaung, said that while Hang Nadim had been renovated to meet many international standards, its cargo terminal had not.

Minister of Transportation Haryanto Dhanutirto said early this week that the government had ordered all foreign cargo planes to land in Batam so that Hang Nadim would become the country's air cargo center.

But he did not say when the ruling came into effect or whether a law existed for that purpose.

The minister said that all international air cargo must be loaded and unloaded in Hang Nadim and that only domestic air cargo companies could handle storage and distribution of the cargo domestically.

The policy aimed to stimulate the role of domestic airlines in air freight services, he said.

But Fuad said yesterday: "For instance, the cargo terminal cannot store non-durable goods, like food and vegetables, because it does not have any refrigeration facilities."

According to the airport's masterplan, Fuad said, the cargo terminal will meet international standards, complete with refrigerators, after the fourth phase of the airport's development had been completed. The fourth phase is scheduled to begin in 1997 but "its realization depends on the availability of funds," he said.

The fourth development phase will extend the cargo terminal's area to 35,000 square meters from 1,800 square meters at present, including a second story to be built on the terminal.

The cargo terminal can now hold 25,000 tons of cargo, Fuad said. He said he had no idea about its future capacity.

Marpaung said Hang Nadim's cargo terminal had only been served by one scheduled air cargo service, Sabang Merauke Air Cargo (SMAC), which flies a Singapore-Batam-Balik Papan route twice daily, using an AN 74 aircraft with a 1.7-ton capacity.

Earlier this week, Garuda Indonesia launched its first Boeing 737-200C cargo jet to operate scheduled services to major cities in eastern Indonesia.

The Batam Island Development Authority (BIDA) has renovated Hang Nadim airport's passenger terminal to an international standard and improved its cargo terminal to rival the busy Changi airport in Singapore.

Hang Nadim's runway has been extended to more than 4,000 meters, longer than Cengkareng airport's, and its apron can host seven Boeing B-747-400s, three Boeing-737s and three F-28s simultaneously.

Garuda Indonesia launched its weekly Jakarta-Batam-Jeddah service last Wednesday. It is the first scheduled international flight to stop over in Batam. Garuda plans more international flights via the airport.

The airline does not plan to fly cargo to the island.

"As far as our air cargo service is concerned, for the moment, we will focus on eastern Indonesia," said Harliman Sumasaptra, Garuda Indonesia's domestic area chief.

Fuad said Hang Nadim's cargo terminal had good development potential, given that industrial companies in Batam exported 205 tons of their produce a week to Asian, American and European countries.

The goods, he said, were mostly carried by sea to Singapore before being air freighted to their final destinations.

"Most of the industries here belong to Singaporeans. Maybe, the industries deliberately avoid Hang Nadim because of an agreement that all the goods should be carried by Singapore's air cargo," he said.