Merpati to link Semarang and Singapore
JAKARTA (JP): Merpati Nusantara, the state-owned airline which serves mostly unprofitable domestic routes, plans to expand its regional services by linking Semarang in Central Java and Singapore.
Merpati spokesman Tondo Widodo said yesterday that Minister of Transportation Haryanto Dhanutirto had given a green light to the airline to begin the new service later this year.
The Semarang-Singapore route will be Merpati's sixth regional route after its services for the Kupang-Darwin, Denpasar-Port Hedland, Bandung-Singapore and Jakarta-Kuala Lumpur routes, along with its new Australia-bound service.
Merpati, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the flag carrier Garuda Indonesia, plans next month to begin its fifth overseas service, the Jakarta-Melbourne route. The government has also indicated that Merpati will likely win licenses to fly to Britain as well as South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan in the following years.
Many Central Java businessmen intending to fly to Singapore currently have to go to Jakarta or Surabaya in East Java to get flights, Haryanto told reporters after delivering a presentation at a seminar titled "The Impact of the June Package of Deregulation" in Semarang yesterday.
He said that Merpati would probably serve the Semarang- Singapore route just once per week. "The service will be increased if the demand is improving," he said.
He said that Ahmad Yani airport in Semarang, which has been expanded, is now able to accommodate medium-body aircraft such as Boeing 737s.
"We have opened 23 airports as international gateways in the first two years of the ongoing Sixth Five-Year Development Plan (Repelita VI) period," Haryanto said. The period will end in March 1999.
He said that of the total 23 international gateways, 11 airports are able to accommodate wide-body jets.
In addition to the airport expansion projects, Indonesia had also prepared a number of additional sea infrastructures and facilities to improve sea transportation services, Haryanto said.
"By the end of the Repelita V period in 1993, there were 127 seaports open for international trade. The figure has now increased to 131 seaports," he said.
Out of the 131 seaports, 16 are used for container ports.
"We have also developed a number of dry ports in Bandung (West Java), Surakarta (Central Java), Jember (East Java), Palembang (South Sumatra), Cirebon (West Java) and Tebing Tinggi (North Sumatra)," he said, adding that their services will also be improved.
Haryanto said that his office will continuously introduce more conducive policies on the development of fleet, management, tariff structuring, operation, cooperation and infrastructures. (har/icn)