Most airports in Indonesia inadequate, expert says

Most airports in Indonesia inadequate, expert says

JAKARTA (JP): An airline executive warned yesterday that most
airports in Indonesia lack adequate facilities, possibly putting
airliners, and passengers, in peril.

The president of the national air carrier Garuda Indonesia,
Wage Mulyono, told Commission V of the House of Representatives
here yesterday that most airports in the country have very poor
infrastructures and facilities.

"Navigation systems at all airports, except in Jakarta, are
outdated. The airports also lack high-powered, high frequency
long distance communications devices," he said, all of which are
critical.

Wage also said that the lighting and sign posting on several
runways was substandard.

"For example, part of the runway at the airport in Jayapura,
Irian Jaya, is damaged," he told the commission in charge of
transportation, public workings, tourism and telecommunications.

Wage also pointed out that signals at Soekarno-Hatta
international airport in Jakarta are too small to be seen from
cockpits, while many lights on the taxi ways are burned out.

The Ngurah Rai airport in Denpasar, Bali, has a very limited
aircraft parking lot, forcing the jets to drop passengers off at
rather remote, and sometimes unsafe, places.

Indonesia currently operates 70 airports, 19 of which are
international gateways, including those in Jakarta, Surabaya,
Bali, Batam, Manado and Medan.

Chairman of the Board of Meteorology and Geophysics, Karjoto,
said recently that only eight airports in Indonesia are equipped
with weather radar: Polonia airport in Medan, the Hasanudin
airport in Ujungpandang, the Sultan Mahmud Bahrudin airport in
Palembang, South Sumatra, the Soekarno-Hatta airport in Jakarta,
the Ngurah Rai airport in Bali, the El Tari in Kupang, East Nusa
Tenggara, Kaisepo in Biak, Irian Jaya and Achmad Yani in
Semarang, Central Java.

And of the eight equipped, only three, Polonia, Ngurah Rai and
Hasanudin, have functioning radars.(icn)