JAKARTA: The West Java administration plans to give its stake in the Kertajati International Airport in Majalengka to the central government and in return get a stake in Husein Sastranegara Airport in Bandung.
The plan was to be implemented next year to accelerate development at the Kertajati airport and would involve transferring full management control to the central government, as the local authority seeks to secure regional assets in other areas, West Java Development Planning Board (Bappeda) head Dedi Mulyadi said.
“The governor sees transferring the ownership from the province to the central government as one way to accelerate the development of Kertajati, meaning that the province will relinquish its majority stake in Kertajati,” he said in Bandung on Tuesday.
In return, Dedi said, the local authority aimed to acquire ownership of Husein Sastranegara Airport. The West Java government currently holds 70% of Kertajati’s shares, while the remainder is owned by state-owned airport operator PT Angkasa Pura II and the West Java civil servant cooperative.
Majority ownership comes with the burden to manage the airport amid ballooning operational costs.
Bappeda head Dedi said that handing over the stake to the central government is expected to allow streamlined operational control, services and flight route arrangements without local bureaucratic hurdles.
Dedi vowed that the local government would continue operating Kertajati this year using its 100 billion rupiah or about US$5.9mil budget.
“The operational budget of 100 billion rupiah will continue to be disbursed this year. However, for next year onwards, we are preparing for a swap arrangement at least at the shareholding level, because matters related to aviation are actually under the central government’s authority,” he said.
Dedi also emphasised that the ownership scheme to be agreed upon would ultimately prioritise economic benefits for the people of West Java, particularly in areas around the Kertajati airport, including Cirebon, Indramayu, Majalengka and Kuningan.
Kertajati airport was established in 2018 and became Indonesia’s second-largest airport, after Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Tangerang, Banten.
However, Kertajati has suffered a decline in passenger traffic, with the cumulative number of domestic passengers from January to November last year dropping by 85.1% year-on-year (y-o-y), while international arrivals plunged 42.3% y-o-y, according to Statistics Indonesia.
Experts attribute the subdued demand to poor planning and inadequate infrastructure. In June last year, the airport suspended all domestic routes and now only operates international flights to Singapore twice a week as carriers prioritise routes with higher load factors.
To keep the airport running, the government tried to reposition Kertajati as a departure and arrival hub for pilgrim flights and to transform it into a centre for maintenance. — The Jakarta Post/ANN
