Government announces extra flights for Idul Fitri

JAKARTA (JP): The government announced yesterday that there would be extra flights on 24 domestic and 12 international air routes for seven days before the Idul Fitri holiday and seven days after it.

Director General of Air Transportation Zainuddin Sikado guaranteed that air fares would not rise during this period despite the busy traffic.

"As Idul Fitri will coincide with the Chinese New Year (Feb. 7), the number of air passengers is estimated to increase 17 percent to 1.37 million," he said.

Idul Fitri will fall on Feb. 9 and Feb. 10 but many companies are closed for at least a week during the holiday.

He said the 24 domestic routes which would have extra flights included those from Jakarta to Medan, Surabaya, Yogyakarta, Denpasar, Palembang, Batam, Semarang, Ujungpandang, Pontianak, Surakarta, Pangkalpinang, Padang, Banjarmasin and Tanjungpandan.

The other extra flights would occur on routes from Surabaya to Balikpapan, Banjarmasin, Ujungpandang and Denpasar and on the Padang-Batam, Medan-Pekanbaru, Batam-Palembang and Palembang- Pangkalpinang routes, Sikado said.

Extra flights would also occur on the Jakarta-Singapore, Jakarta-Perth, Jakarta-Amman, Jakarta-Manila, Denpasar-Singapore, Medan-Singapore, Medan-Penang, Surabaya-Kuala Lumpur, Denpasar- Kuala Lumpur, Medan-Kuala Lumpur, Denpasar-Taiwan and Denpasar- Guam routes.

The government raised domestic economy airfares last October by up to 4 percent because of the appreciation of the U.S. dollar against the rupiah.

The national air carrier Garuda Indonesia has said that it would make 79 additional flights during the Idul fitri and Chinese New Year holidays between Feb. 1 and Feb. 16.

Garuda's extra flights will provide 21,872 additional seats on routes from Jakarta to Medan, Denpasar, Surabaya, Medan, Ujungpandang, Yogyakarta, Surakarta, Batam, Palembang, Semarang, Pontianak, Padang and Pekanbaru.

Last year, Garuda operated 66 extra flights with 10,334 seats to nine destinations.

The airlines reminded passengers that the Jakarta-Surakarta airfares would remain at Rp 144,000, Jakarta-Semarang Rp 122,000, Jakarta-Pontianak Rp 222,000, Jakarta-Padang Rp 276,000, Jakarta- Palembang Rp 14,000, Surabaya-Balikpapan Rp 236,000 and Surabaya- Ujungpandang Rp 229,000 excluding taxes. (icn)