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.