INACA urges government to take immediate action on fires

JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian National Air Carriers Association (INACA) called on the government on Monday to immediately deal with the forest fires burning in a number of the country's provinces to avoid a repeat of the haze which disrupted air traffic in late-1997.

INACA chairman Soelarto Hadisoemarto said a delay in handling the forest fires would be fatal to the country's air traffic.

"Please don't be late. A delayed response will only make the fires spread more quickly and create a thicker haze. At that stage, there is nothing that can be done but cancel flights," he told The Jakarta Post.

He said the government should not wait for international aid to extinguish the fires, adding that the government could use older, local airplanes to drop water on the fires.

Forest fires are currently burning in parts of Sumatra and Kalimantan. The haze produced by the fires has affected air conditions in neighboring countries Malaysia and Singapore.

Soelarto warned that flights to and from Singapore and Malaysia could be easily affected by the haze due to the two countries vicinity to Sumatra and Kalimantan.

He said a number of domestic flights could also be disrupted by the haze because of their proximity to the forest fires. He said flights which could be disrupted were those to and from Pekanbaru in Riau, Medan in North Sumatra, Palangkaraya in West Kalimantan, Balikpapan in East Kalimantan and Pontianak in Central Kalimantan.

He said no flights had been canceled to date.

At least 3,372 domestic flights, mostly to and from destinations in Sumatra and Kalimantan, were canceled due to forest fires in the two provinces in August and September 1997.

The resulting haze from 1997's forest fires affected Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam, Thailand, Philippines and some parts of Australia.

In September 1997, a Garuda Indonesia Airbus A-300 crashed on landing at Polonia Airport in Medan, North Sumatra, allegedly due to the thick haze blanketing some areas of the airfield.

The haze from the current forest fires has disrupted some flights to and from Pekanbaru. An aircraft from Medan to Pekanbaru was forced to return to Medan because the haze made it impossible for the plane to land.

Meity Robot, the chairwoman of the Jakarta chapter of the Association of Indonesian Tour and Travel Agencies, said the possible cancellation of flights, especially from overseas destinations, would affect the country's tourist industry.

She also said foreign tourists might cancel visits to Indonesia due to concern about the impact of the haze on travel safety and health.

She said many travelers and tour groups from the United States, Europe and Japan canceled trips to Indonesia in 1997 to avoid the choking haze.

"The problem is that many foreign travel agents and tourists think that the smog from forest fires in Sumatra and Kalimantan actually lingers all across the country.

"The government must act fast to stop the fires, otherwise our ailing tourist industry will not recover, but instead sink again," Meity said.

She said Indonesia's tourist industry was beginning to recover, especially in the number of inbound arrivals, from the damage caused by the 1997 forest fires and the last two years of political and economic crisis.

Directorate General of Tourism I Gede Ardika said his office would disseminate information to foreign travel agents and representatives here and abroad explaining that the haze would not affect tourism destinations like Yogyakarta and Bali.

"We'll also ask related ministries to do something about the fires before it is too late," he said. (cst)