Kertajati Airport to continue serving Hajj and Umrah flights alongside MRO function

Regarding Kertajati, it will indeed be used for MRO, but its function for hajj and umrah pilgrim flights will remain in place.

Jakarta (ANTARA) - The Ministry of Transportation, through its Directorate General of Civil Aviation, has stated that Kertajati Airport in Majalengka Regency, West Java, will continue to serve hajj and umrah flights in addition to being designated as an MRO (Maintenance, Repair, Overhaul) facility.

“Regarding Kertajati, it will indeed be used for MRO, but its function for hajj and umrah pilgrim flights will remain there,” said Lukman in Jakarta on Thursday.

As is known, Kertajati Airport has been used to serve hajj and umrah flights since 2023.

Kertajati Airport is the second largest airport in Indonesia after Soekarno-Hatta Airport. It has a passenger terminal capacity of up to 5.6 million passengers per year.

For information, the Coordinating Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development, Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono (AHY), has revealed a collaboration between PT Dirgantara Indonesia (Persero) and PT Bandarudara Internasional Jawa Barat (Perseroda) to develop the Kertajati area in West Java as an aerospace industry hub.

According to him, one of the challenges that is being continuously monitored is ensuring that Kertajati Airport becomes increasingly active, with more flights able to use the airport, including for hajj and umrah.

But at the same time, efforts are under way to develop an aerospace industrial zone, or industrial park, dedicated to the aviation industry.

According to AHY, as is widely known, Bandung is becoming increasingly densely populated, with more and more spatial planning interests competing with one another, so a wider development area is needed, making Kertajati one of the ideal choices.

He explained that Kertajati’s location in Majalengka Regency, within the Cirebon–Patimban–Kertajati (Rebana) corridor, is also strategic because, in terms of regional connectivity, it is directly linked westwards to Jakarta, as well as to the industrial areas of Bekasi, Karawang and Purwakarta.

Then there is Patimban Port, while to the east the corridor leads towards Cirebon and continues into Central Java as far as Semarang. To the south, Kertajati is expected to serve as a feeder for flights to a number of regencies and cities in the southern regions of West Java and Central Java.