INACA urges government to take immediate action on fires

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)