Indonesia’s airline industry is being held back by the slow pace of airport infrastructure improvements, an airline industry group says.
Bayu Sutanto of the National Air Carriers Association said a lack of infrastructural development is preventing airlines from increasing capacity at some airports.
"The data from the Central Statistics Agency showed that the airline industry has reached saturation, because the increase in seat capacity was not supported by an increase in airport capacity and an improvement in infrastructure," Bayu said.
"The lack of infrastructural development did not only affect Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta Airport, but there are other airports across the archipelago similarly affected. The fact that not all airports are operating 24 hours a day also contributed to the slowed growth in the number of passengers," he said.
Indonesia’s three main international airports – Jakarta, Surabaya and Denpasar in Bali have all seen major improvements in recent years, however additional gates and runway upgrades have not kept pace with the growing demand.
The number of domestic passengers increased by almost 6% last year to 58.9 million.
