The opening of the new flight routes since January until early July this year is an effort to expand connectivity of air transportation and tourism development in the central and eastern regions of Indonesia.
"We will continue to support the air transportation connectivity development in line with the tourism development growth through incentives and tourism initiative programs, notably through the Collaborative Destination Development program," President Director of PT Angkasa Pura I Danang S Baskoro said in a written press statement here on Saturday.
He stated that the key to success of the tourism industry and airline business is collaborative development of the government, airlines, and airport programs.
Baskoro noted that the 28 new routes included 20 domestic routes and the 8 international routes.
Of the 20 new routes, Garuda Indonesia has opened the Manado-Gorontalo, Ambon-Kaimana, Ambon-Surabaya, and Ambon-Sorong routes.
Lion Air has opened the Kinabalu-Denpasar, Balikpapan-Pontianak, Kualalumpur-Solo, Kualalumpur-Surabaya, and Surabaya-Palembang routes.
Malindo Air hasopened Kualalumpur-Denpasar and Denpasar-Brisbane routes. Sriwijaya Air served the new routes of Sentani-Surabaya, Lampung-Surabaya, Lampung-Yogyakarta, Semarang-Makassar, and Makassar-Mamuju.
Susi Air flies the routes of Ambon-Sanana and North Maluku. Wings Air opened the routes of Manado-Raja Ampat, Manado-Sangir Talaud-Merauke, and Ambon-Dobo.
Air Asia Indonesia has opened the routes of Kualalumpur-Lombok and Kualalumpur-Yogyakarta, while Dimonim Air flies the routes of Kisar (Maluku)-Ambon.
Batik Air opened Ambon-Makassar and Ambon-Jakarta routes.
The Auckland-Denpasar route was served by Air New Zealand, while the Kualalumpur-Solo and Denpasar-Narita routes were served by Air Asia.
"With the opening of the new routes, we are convinced that the number of passengers up to the middle of this year will reach 90 million, up 11 percent from that in 2016 which was 83.8 million," Baskoro noted.
Angkasa Pura I is one of the state-owned airport operators. It operates 13 airports, namely I Gusti Ngurah Rai of Bali, Juanda of Surabaya, Sultan Hasanuddin of Makassar, Sultan Aji Muhammad Sulaiman of Sepinggan Balikpapan, Frans Kaisiepo of Biak, Sam Ratulangi of Manado, Syamsudin Noor of Banjarmasin, Ahmad Yani of Semarang, Adisutjipto of Yogyakarta, Adi Soemarmo of Surakarta, Internasional Praya of Lombok, Pattimura of Ambon, and El Tari of Kupang.
(A014/INE)
EDITED BY INE/H-YH.
Editor: Suryanto
Copyright © ANTARA 2017
