Transmigrants now fly in style

Transmigrants now fly in style

JAKARTA (JP): Twenty-five families left from the Halim Perdanakusumah airport yesterday on board a commercial Boeing 737-200 plane from here to Jayapura with plans to begin a new life in Irian Jaya.

The Boeings are a major transportation improvement in the government's program to resettle people from overcrowded Java to the lesser densely populated islands, Antara reported.

In the past, settlers and their belongings were transported and crammed into Hercules planes. Now with the use of passenger jets they travel in style.

Ajum, a 50-year old woman who was traveling with her husband and four children, was elated. "I feel as if we are on holiday," she said before boarding the plane.

Wibowo, director general for the deployment and supervision at the Ministry of Transmigration, said at the airport that the new method was not necessarily more expensive.

"The use of passenger jets is in fact more efficient because it takes only five hours to reach Jayapura, while a Hercules plane would take at least seven and half hours," he said.

He added that the government is paying an hourly rate to PT Bali Air, the owners of the Boeing 737 planes. The private operator has won a contract to transport 225 families from Jakarta, Surabaya and Solo to Irian Jaya.

"We hope the jet planes will encourage more people to join the transmigration program," he said.

The Ministry of Transmigration previously chartered the Hercules and Transhall propeller planes from the state-owned PT Pelita Air Service when transporting transmigrants.

A source in Pelita said that the airline did not extend the contract with the Ministry of Transmigration because its Hercules planes had been claimed by the Air Force. (rms)