Jakarta – The government has said 10 new airports started operations in 2018, but it recorded a decrease in the number of airplane passengers.
The Transportation Ministry's Air Transportation Directorate General plans to complete the construction of four other airports – in Siau, North Sulawesi; in Tambelan, Riau Islands; in Muara Teweh, Central Kalimantan and in Pantar, East Nusa Tenggara.
Meanwhile, the 10 airports completed in 2018 were Letung – Anambas in Riau Islands, Namniwel in Maluku, Miangas in North Sulawesi, Morowali in South Sulawesi, Werur in West Papua, Maratua in East Kalimantan, Koroway Batu in Papua, Kertajati in West Java, Samarinda Baru in East Kalimantan and Tebelian in West Kalimantan.
The ministry previously targeted to complete 15 new airports in 2018 and 2019, but Buntukunik Airport in the tourist destination of Tana Toraja, South Sulawesi, is set to begin operations in 2020, said the ministry's air transportation director general, Polana Banguningsih Pramesti.
Despite the increasing number of the airports in operation, the number of last year's airplane passengers decreased by 10 percent to 126 million passengers as of November 2018 compared to the figure in the corresponding period in 2017. Average passenger growth from 2014 to 2018 was 9.2 percent.
"Based on our tentative assumption, the decrease was caused by improvements in land transportation, especially land transportation in Java," Polana said in a press briefing on Friday as reported by kontan.co.id, referring to the operation of the trans-Java toll road.
However, the air cargo business saw an 11.2 percent increase with 1.12 million tons recorded in 2018, from 1.11 million tons in 2017. (ars/bbn)