Medan airport overwhelmed
Medan airport overwhelmed
Apriadi Gunawan, The Jakarta Post, Medan, North Sumatra
Ing-Ing, an employee of China Southern Airlines, recalled that
she and her two colleagues from the Chinese Embassy in Jakarta,
had to negotiate with and beg an operations manager at Medan's
Polonia airport here before they were about to fly aid to Aceh
recently.
She said that at first she was pessimistic that the flight
would go, as she witnessed the large amount of flight delays as a
result of the huge number of aircraft flying in to Aceh with
tsunami relief.
The parking area for planes in the airport is limited, while
the number of planes and helicopters carrying aid is huge.
Polonia has been the main hub for humanitarian aid to Aceh over
the last month.
Finally, after several hours of wrangling, Ing-Ing said that
the airport management allowed the Chinese relief flight to take
off for Aceh.
"It's not our first aid shipment to Aceh. We have sent food
twice with a total of 150 tons. This is our third delivery and we
are sending 50 tons of medicine and two generators. It's very
urgent to send medicine because so many people are in need of it.
"It's not like we're asking for special treatment. But there
have been several delays in sending this," Ing-Ing told The
Jakarta Post after several meetings with local airport officials
over the weekend.
The branch head of PT Angkasa Pura II airport management
company, Adi Suprapto, conceded that the flight delays had been
frequent since the tsunami disaster on Dec. 26.
From the first week, there was chaos at the airport as so many
groups were trying to fly through Medan to get to Aceh. But the
problems have been mitigated somewhat and the delays have dropped
a bit, he added.
"We can't deny that about 15 percent of flights are delayed
from here in Polonia, both for military or regular flights. But
there has been a lot of improvement compared to the early period
after the tsunami. Back then, there were many delays, some up to
nine hours," Adi told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.
He added that the Angkasa Pura was trying to coordinate with
each group that needs to fly through Medan.
The air traffic, Adi said, was unusually congested and hectic
given the high number of very large foreign planes coming in and
needing space to park while they load or unload.
Since the disaster, the average number of foreign military and
regular domestic flights has been 250 daily. On Dec. 30 -- four
days after the tsunami -- the number reached 279 flights. The
number of flights has far surpassed the normal average of about
115 per day.
"There's no space left. The airport's parking zone capacity is
actually listed at 11 Boeing 737 type planes (medium-sized jets).
Now, however, there are around 15 planes parked there on any
given day, including many large DC-10s and C-130 Hercules
planes," said Adi.
He said it was a stressful experience for him to keep it all
coordinated.
The Indonesian Military's coordinator for foreign military
planes here, Rear Marshall M.B. Sidehabi, reiterated that there
were many foreign military planes flying through Polonia,
including those from The United States, Australia, Singapore,
Russia, Malaysia, Germany, France, Japan and China.
Each and every foreign plane heading to Aceh must come to the
coordination center first.
"We then set the flight time. No foreign plane can enter Aceh
without our permission and coordination," Sidehabi said.
The total number of foreign flights that have flown from
Polonia to Aceh was at 962 as of Sunday.
"We often encounter difficulties in keeping the flights in
order, especially because they all want to enter Aceh
immediately, but they have to get on the waiting list.
Regardless, we never restrict them," Sidehabi declared.