President Jokowi: Eight Major Airports Can Potentially Become Hubs, Super Hubs

President Jokowi talks with Cabinet Secretary before a limited meeting on Thursday (6/8) at the Merdeka Palace, Jakarta. (Photo: Jay/PR)

As many as eight international airports in Indonesia have the potential to become hubs and super hubs, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has said.

Those airports include Bali’s Ngurah Rai, Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta, Medan’s Kualanamu, Yogyakarta, Balikpapan’s Sepinggan, Makassar’s Hassanudin, Manado’s Sam Ratulangi, and Surabaya’s Juanda.

According to the President, tourism and aviation industries are two sectors worst-affected by the COVID-19 pandemic; yet, he noted that this challenge might serve a momentum for these sectors to transform and to be better structured.

The President added that the transformation may include developing flight routes, determining hubs and super hubs, as well as the possibility of merging state-owned aviation and tourism industries to design more visible directions.

“So should the next pandemic strikes, economic foundation in those sectors will be stronger and better,” the President said, adding that Indonesia has too many and uneven airline hubs.

“There are currently thirty international airports in the country but 9% of the total traffic is concentrated only at four major airports, namely Soekarno-Hatta in capital Jakarta, Ngurah Rai in the resort island of Bali, Juanda in East Java province, and Kualanamu in North Sumatra province,” said the President.

The Head of State also said he had ordered his Cabinet to determine which airport has potential to be an international hub considering its location and characteristic of the region.

The President also called for a breakthrough in the tourism sector such as the management of the tourism ecosystem along with the supporting factors and flights arrangement in which everything must be well-integrated with proper management from upstream to downstream.

“It has to start from airline management, airport management, flight services connected to destinations, hotels and travel management, as well as the management of local products and our creative industries,” the President said. (FID / EN)

Translated by: Estu Widyamurti
Reviewed by: M. Ersan Pamungkas