"We have coordinated with the Ministry of Transportation, the Ministry of SOEs, and airlines regarding all the possibilities to reduce the prices of domestic flight tickets," he informed during "The Weekly Brief with Sandi Uno" in Jakarta on Monday.
Uno said that people have been complaining about high airfares, which have surpassed pre-pandemic levels, for more than nine months, and this has also negatively impacted the tourism and creative economy sectors.
"The increase (in airfares) is really high if compared to pre-pandemic (levels). The most expensive routes are in Eastern Indonesia, and some are also in destinations like Sumba (East Nusa Tenggara)," he informed.
The minister said that the target for domestic tourist trips for 2024, which has been set at around 1.2 billion to 1.5 billion trips, can be achieved if plane tickets are made affordable.
For that reason, he appealed to the community to be patient because the government is currently carrying out coordination between ministries and institutions and making efforts to resolve the problem so that airfares on domestic routes can be made more affordable for the community.
Regarding the causes behind the high prices of flight tickets, he said that the spike has been caused by several factors, including lack of planes, limited number of flights, small number of available seats, as well as fuel costs and other supporting costs.
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Translator: Sinta Ambarwati, Raka Adji
Editor: Rahmad Nasution
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