Govt to revise flight routes

Govt to revise flight routes

JAKARTA (JP): The government will soon revise domestic airline routes to help reduce costs for passengers due to inefficient flight operations, an official said.

"The realignment of domestic routes has been completed, but we cannot announce the changes yet because we are waiting for the government to issue a regulation on the implementation of law No. 15/1992 on air transportation," Director General of Air Transportation Zainudin Sikado said here yesterday.

He said the revision will allow 14 new routes to open as well as the introduction of new direct routes between cities in the country.

For example, the re-routing will introduce direct flights between Medan in North Sumatra and Ujungpandang in South Sulawesi with no stopover in Jakarta.

"We are committed to reducing stopovers, which will certainly reduce costs for passengers," he said after opening an annual meeting of a state-owned airport management company, PT Angkasa Pura II, at its headquarters at the Soekarno-Hatta airport here.

He said the new routes are expected to meet the rising demand from passengers and airlines, some of which have strengthened their fleets with new aircraft.

"Most of our private airliners are now capable of operating wide-body jets which can serve long distances," he said.

Zainudin declined to elaborate on the details of the new routes.

But he expects that the new routes will promote competitiveness among the airlines to improve their fleets, instead of competing in discount-based travel packages.

He added that the revised routes are now being offered to domestic airlines through the Association of Indonesian Airliners (Inaca). (fhp)