'Foreign cargo aircraft must land in Batam'

'Foreign cargo aircraft must land in Batam'

JAKARTA (JP): No foreign cargo plane may land in Indonesia,
except at Batam's Hang Nadim airport, Minister of Transportation
Haryanto Dhanutirto said yesterday.

This decision is expected to stimulate the role of domestic
airlines in air freight services and help the establishment of
Hang Nadim as the country's air cargo center, he said.

He did not say when the ruling came into effect, nor if a law
had been drafted for that purpose.

"I have already rejected the requests of (foreign airfreight
companies) Federal Express, UPS and TNT that want to freely enter
Indonesia. They may only enter Batam to load and unload cargo,
while storage and distribution will be done by domestic fleets,"
he said at a seminar.

Haryanto said that exports of tuna fish from Manado (North
Sulawesi) and Bali were exempted from the ruling because they
decayed easily.

Chief executive officers and senior executives of several
airlines, Director General of Air Transportation Zainuddin
Sikado, Secretary-General of the Ministry of Transportation
Muchtarudin Siregar and the head of the Ministry of
Transportation's Research and Development division, Soebagijo,
were at the seminar on airlines and globalization.

Haryanto said that after entering Batam, international air
cargo would be freighted in Indonesia by national airlines,
including state-owned Garuda Indonesia.

Garuda earlier this week launched its first Boeing 737-200C
cargo jet to operate scheduled services to major cities in
eastern Indonesia, including Surabaya (East Java), Denpasar
(Bali), Ujungpandang (South Sulawesi), Manado (North Sulawesi),
Biak and Jayapura (both in Irian Jaya).

Haryanto urged foreign cargo fleets yesterday to touch down in
Batam, saying that landing fees and turbo fuel (Avtur) were less
expensive than at Singapore's Changi airport.

The Batam development authority provides ferry services to
Singapore free of immigration inspections, he said.

Hang Nadim airport, about 20 kilometers southeast of
Singapore, is being developed as an international transport
center for scheduled and chartered passenger and cargo flights.

An expansion project at the airport was launched last
December. The airport is one of the country's 19 international
gateways.

The airport has a 4,000-meter runway, and can service seven
wide-bodied and six smaller-bodied aircraft.

Sikado said last month that domestic airlines should be
protected to "avoid what has happened in sea cargo
transportation".

Indonesian ships carry only 2.3 percent of the country's
exports and imports. (pwn)