Camelia Pasandaran, Jakarta – The government has announced plans to overhaul the air transportation sector in an effort to address the country's patchy record for flight safety and aviation infrastructure.

Vice President Boediono on Thursday told a coordination meeting on transportation safety, which brought together several ministers and heads of related institutions, that the revamp was of utmost importance to address public concerns about the aviation sector, which has been dogged in recent years by safety issues and crashes.

"We have to provide a transparent response and all our decisions should be accessible to the public," Boediono said. "Let us start by looking for concrete steps, and not lofty ones, to improve transportation safety."

Yopie Hidayat, a spokesman for Boediono, said the meeting produced an eight-point resolution to improve air safety and address overcrowding at airports.

The top priority, he said, is to put the National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT) directly under the president. The committee is currently under the Ministry of Transportation.

"The meeting decided the KNKT should be responsible to the president to strengthen its independence, empower it and shed its dependency on the Transportation Ministry, which it should be supervising," he said.

Yopie said there would be increased supervision of the implementation of the KNKT's recommendations, and tougher sanctions for those found in breach of transportation regulations.

All pending regulations on flight safety should also be finalized by the end of the year, he said, adding that the Directorate General for Air Transportation would be asked to fast-track the process.

The meeting also agreed that key airports across the country, including Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta International Airport and Bali's Ngurah Rai International Airport, should be expanded. The expansion program, Yopie said, would be funded from the state budget, but public-private partnership schemes would also be considered.

He said Soekarno-Hatta, which was built to handle 22 million passengers a year, handled 34 million passengers in 2009 and an estimated 40 million passengers were expected to pass through the airport this year.

Yopie said a new runway and two new terminals were planned for Soekarno-Hatta, with the work expected to be finished by 2013. He said some commercial traffic would be diverted to Halim Perdanakusuma air base in East Jakarta "as a temporary solution" while Soekarno-Hatta was being expanded.

An interministerial team jointly led by the ministries of transportation and state-owned enterprises will be set up to oversee the expansion plans.

Another decision reached was to accelerate the restructuring and separation of airports' navigation and operational functions. Yopie said a new public corporation would be formed to handle the country's navigation and air traffic control systems.

The Coordinating Ministry for the Economy is currently completing the preparations for the new enterprise, he added.

Airlines, Yopie said, would also be encouraged to employ online ticketing systems, which are currently not mandatory.

"There is a need for regulation on this," he said. "The problem is that in the regions, manual transactions are still necessary, especially in small towns. The Directorate General for Air Transportation will discuss this with the airlines and look into such a scheme, including for cargo."