Opening more gateways

Opening more gateways

The new Indonesia-Singapore air service agreement to be signed
in Central Java later this month bears a new, fundamental
development. For the first time, Indonesia's bilateral civil
aviation pact will include private airliners. As Minister of
Transportation Haryanto Dhanutirto told newsmen after a meeting
with President Soeharto early last week, two more domestic
private carriers, in addition to the state-owned Merpati and
privately-owned Sempati Air, will be allowed to serve Singapore
under the new air agreement.

That is indeed a fundamental shift in the government's civil
aviation policy. In the past, bilateral air agreements have been
designed only to serve the interests of the national flag-
carrier, Garuda Indonesia. Sempati has been serving several
regional service routes, such as Singapore, Taipei and Australia,
over the past year, but those services were possible only because
Garuda did not fully utilize the service capacity granted it
under the bilateral air pacts with those countries.

The new development is actually the natural consequence of the
license given to private airliners in the late 1980s to operate
jet planes. And it will obviously also enhance the growth of
second-tier carriers in Indonesia.

Hopefully, more ASEAN countries will adopt such a multi-
airline policy in their bilateral aviation pacts to accommodate
smaller carriers. We hope that Thailand's Bangkok Airways,
Singapore SilkAir, Malaysian Pelangi Air and the Philippine
Aerolift will soon be able to serve Indonesia's provincial cities
as well.

Because the ASEAN countries are developing the growth-triangle
concept of promoting economic linkages among their provinces,
such as Batam-Singapore-Johor, North Sumatra-Penang-Phuket, the
second-tier carriers could play an important role in facilitating
smoother flows of people and goods. Since these carriers usually
operate small airplanes, they are more commercially viable in
plying the regional service routes.

The smaller airlines also could contribute greatly to
promoting intra-ASEAN tourism which, along with the high growth
of their economies, is poised to expand rapidly in the years to
come. With the process of the ASEAN Free Trade Area underway,
economic linkages between the ASEAN countries will intensify and
the demand for air services will increase.

The new Indonesia-Singapore air agreement also will provide a
strong boost to the Indonesian tourism industry, given the
important role of Changi airport as the hub for tourists
traveling to the other ASEAN countries. Because Singapore
carriers will be allowed to directly serve 10 cities in
Indonesia, and because Mandala, Sempati, Bouraq and Merpati will
be allowed to link more Indonesian cities with Singapore, foreign
tourists will have a richer variety of package tours, using
different gateways, to choose from when they come to Indonesia.

That will in turn encourage revisits. A tourist, for example,
could fly in through Solo and spend his entire vacation in
Central Java. The following year he could enter Indonesia through
Ujungpandang and spend his holiday in South Sulawesi. In fact, a
foreign tourist could visit Indonesia 10 times without going
through the same gateway. That is one of the distinct advantages
which Indonesia, as the world's largest archipelagic country, can
offer.

Even more encouraging is the fact that the new bilateral air
agreement with Singapore will soon be supported by restructured
service routes within Indonesia. The revamping of the domestic
routes, which is being finalized, will add 14 new service routes
to improve the efficiency of inter-province flights and to
promote a better hub-spike system in the domestic air service.