Jakartans rush after holidays
M. Taufiqurrahman and Theresia Sufa, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta/Bogor
Thousands of holidaymakers returned to Jakarta on Sunday after spending their New Year's holidays in numerous tourist destinations in the country.
Several airlines claimed that flights from the holiday destinations of Denpasar, Yogyakarta, Surakarta and Batam to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport were fully booked, while state train company PT Kereta Api Indonesia (PT KAI) had to add more cars to anticipate the increasing number of passengers returning to the capital.
National flag carrier Garuda Indonesia said that almost all flights to Jakarta were fully booked, with only few vacant seats available on some flights.
"The load factor of flights from places like Denpasar and Batam reached 100 percent. In fact, we had to turn away a number of would-be passengers," an official with Garuda at Soekarno- Hatta Airport told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.
Domestic flag carrier Merpati Nusantara experienced the same condition.
"The load factor of our 22 flights ranges between 80 percent and 90 percent. Our Boeing 737 plying the Denpasar-Jakarta route, with a seat capacity of 158, carried 155 passengers on board," said Situmorang, a staffer with the airline's transfer desk for domestic flights.
He said that on regular weekdays the number of passengers reached around 120.
Meanwhile, Lion Air public relations manager Hasyim A. Alhabsi said there had been an increase of up to 50 percent in the number of passengers returning to Jakarta.
The airline industry predicted a windfall profit by year-end 2003 as a large number of people traveled across the country and overseas to celebrate Idul Fitri, Christmas and the New Year holidays.
More cars were added to executive trains heading to Jakarta from popular destinations Yogyakarta, Surakarta and Bandung.
Fahruddin, a train dispatcher at Gambir Railway Station, predicted that the number of holidaymakers returning by train would peak on Sunday evening.
In the Puncak mountain resort, vehicles were moving at snail's pace as holidaymakers started to return home.
At around 3 p.m., the flow of vehicles ran at between 40 kilometers per hour (kph) and 50 kph, a police officer said.
"Around 30 vehicles pass along the Puncak road per minute," Second Insp. Maria H. Hera said.
She said that to ease congestion, which was expected to be heavier in the evening, the road would be one-way for traffic heading to Jakarta from 4:30 p.m. onwards. Vehicles from Jakarta, heading to Puncak and Bandung, had to pass through Ciawi.