Airline woes for Indo tourism (The Bruinei Times)

31/07/07

Dewi Kurniawati
JAKARTA 30-Jul-07AS THE country reels under economic, political and environmental troubles, Indonesia has a new burden to shoulder: an airlines' ban that has a direct impact on its tourism.

The European Union officially banned all 51 Indonesian airlines from flying to Europe starting on July 6, while the US Federal Aviation Administration in April declared Indonesia had failed to comply with international safety standards.

Indonesia's air-safety record has been under fire following two commercial airline crashes that killed 123 people this year alone. EU's Transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot said the blacklist is considered an important tool in preventing unsafe airlines from flying to Europe and in informing passengers worldwide of safety problems.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono immediately expressed disappointment at the ban, calling it "the EU's unilateral action," and demanding more room for dialogue.Although government officials downplayed the impact, the EU's ban has already begun hurting tourism. "EU's airline ban has definitely put a burden on Indonesian tourism, especially now that it's the summer high-season for tourist arrivals," Bali Tourism Board chairman Ngurah Wijaya said.
"I know many tourists have cancelled their visits.

Indonesia has set a target of 6 million foreign visitors for this year and 8 million in 2009 nationwide.

The country had missed its tourist-arrival target of 5.5 million in 2006, registering 4.8 million foreign visitors for the year.

To help sweeten the package for foreigners, the government has allowed the citizens of 63 countries to be granted visas on arrival in the archipelago nation.

But the EU contributes about 25 per cent of tourist to the resort island of Bali alone, with as many as 600,000 European tourists visiting the country each year. Since Bali has an international airport facility, tourists who already planned their holiday before the ban took effect may yet fly to Bali with other airlines via Singapore.

"But it will definitely hurt other parts of Indonesia's tourism spots like Yogyakarta, Borneo and Sulawesi island, as tourists then have to take domestic flights," Wijaya said. DPA

EU ban on Indonesian airlines hurting tourism industry (Earth Times)

31/07/07
Jakarta - As the country reels under economic, political and environmental troubles, Indonesia has a new burden to shoulder: an airlines' ban that has a direct impact on its tourism.

The European Union officially banned all 51 Indonesian airlines from flying to Europe starting on July 6, while the US Federal Aviation Administration in April declared Indonesia had failed to comply with international safety standards.

Indonesia has dozens of low-cost airlines following the deregulation of the industry in the late 1990s, leading to a quadrupling of passenger numbers over the past seven years. But its air-safety record has been under fire following two commercial airline crashes that killed 123 people this year alone.

EU's Transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot said the blacklist is considered an important tool in preventing unsafe airlines from flying to Europe and in informing passengers worldwide of safety problems. "Honestly, the blacklist itself is not surprising since we have had many airline accidents recently," Indonesian Transport Ministry director general for aviation Budi Mulyawan Suyitno said. "Although there is no direct impact - because no Indonesian airlines have been flying to Europe since 2004 - we will improve our safety measures for Indonesian airlines," he said. Even so, the Indonesian government had earlier ignored two letters of inquiry the EU sent to the transport ministry, before it decided to blacklist the country's airlines.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono immediately expressed disappointment at the ban, calling it "the European Union's unilateral action," and demanding more room for dialogue. Transport Minister Jusman Djamal mulled a tit-for-tat action by hinting at the option of restricting access to its airspace for EU planes, or of advising its citizens not to fly with European airlines.

But the latter invitation is likely to fall on deaf ears, as many polls conducted by local media show that most Indonesians are in fact worried about flying with their national airlines due to their poor safety records. "I demand the government improve the quality and safety of our transportation immediately," Laksmindra Setyawati, 30, an employee with an international NGO in Jakarta said. Although government officials downplayed the impact, the EU's ban has already begun hurting tourism. "European Union's airline ban has definitely put a burden on Indonesian tourism, especially now that it's the summer high-season for tourist arrivals," Bali Tourism Board chairman Ngurah Wijaya said. "I know many tourists have cancelled their visits. "It will not only effect tourist arrivals, but will also hurt Indonesia's economy, because it will decrease hotel occupancy rates, souvenir sales, and other things related to tourism," Wijaya said. Indonesia has set a target of 6 million foreign visitors for this year and 8 million in 2009 nationwide.

The country had missed its tourist-arrival target of 5.5 million in 2006, registering 4.8 million foreign visitors for the year. To help sweeten the package for foreigners, the government has allowed the citizens of 63 countries to be granted visas on arrival in the archipelago nation. But the European Union contributes about 25 per cent of tourist to the resort island of Bali alone, with as many as 600,000 European tourists visiting the country each year. "European tourists are in fact important to Indonesian tourism," Wijaya said. He explained that since Bali has an international airport facility, tourists who already planned their holiday before the ban took effect may yet fly to Bali with other airlines via Singapore. "But it will definitely hurt other parts of Indonesia's tourism spots like Yogyakarta, Borneo and Sulawesi island, since tourists then have to take domestic flights," Wijaya said. Indonesia's efforts to improve air safety following a string of accidents and near-misses has so far resulted in revoking licenses of four airlines and suspending five others for failing to comply with basic standards in late June.

Earlier this month, Indonesia signed a joint declaration with International Civil Aviation Organization pledging to improve safety, restructure and strengthen the supervisory capacity of the air transport directorate-general, and meet international standards. "Our country's tourism image has been damaged by strings of terrorist attacks, natural disasters and diseases such as bird flu, we can't afford to lose more tourists by this airlines ban," Wijaya said. "We can't just provide excuses anymore, it is a fact that our image is terrible, we need to do something about it before other countries follow EU's ban," he said.

Ministry cleared Jetstar to land, will not investigate incident (The Jakarta Post, Jakarta)

26/07/07
Alvin Darlanika Soedarjo,
The Transportation Ministry said Tuesday it had issued a clearance for the Australian airline Jetstar to make its emergency landing in Bali after the plane suffered engine failure on its flight from Bangkok to Melbourne.

The ministry said it did not need to investigate the incident.

"According to the International Air Transport Association convention, we need to assist an international carrier that needs to make an emergency landing here," Director General of Air Transport at the Transportation Ministry, Budhi M. Suyitno, told The Jakarta Post.
The engine failure prompted the Airbus A330-200, carrying 302 passengers and 12 crew members, to land at the Ngurah Rai Airport just outside Bali's provincial capital of Denpasar early Monday.

The airplane was flying in Indonesian airspace when one of its two engines experienced problems.

Jetstar is the budget subsidiary of Qantas Airways.

"Jetstar has sent another aircraft to fly the passengers to Melbourne," Budhi said.
"However, the faulty aircraft is still in the airport for repair."

The passengers had to wait for about 17 hours before they were flown to Australia.
Budhi said his office followed up the incident by asking for a report from the civil aviation regulatory body of Australia on the cause of the engine failure.

Transportation expert from The Gadjah Mada University, Heru Sutomo, told the Post that as an addition to Australian investigators, Indonesia, as the country where the aircraft was diverted to, could offer local investigation assistants.

"I'm not sure that Indonesia has an official body that is recognized internationally to investigate aircraft incidents," Heru said.

"Only regulatory bodies from advanced countries, such as the U.S. or European countries, have standardized teams for incident investigations," Heru said.

Indonesia has a team for accident investigation for similar scenarios, he said, but the best Indonesia could do was to trust the Australian airline and civil aviation regulatory body.

"A report from Jetstar is not enough -- its report is invalid without a report from the country's regulator."

With regard to Europe's recent airline prohibition against Indonesia, the Transportation Ministry said it was preparing to send official documents and safety progress reports to the European Union.

"The EU official has yet to specify when they will arrive in Indonesia," said Transportation Ministry spokesman Bambang Ervan.

"But we expect them to come in early August."

The EU slapped a ban on all Indonesian airlines on July 6 despite the fact no carriers fly into EU territory at the moment.

However, before the ban, flag carrier Garuda Indonesia announced plans to resume flights into EU territory.

President deplores EU`s ban on RI airlinesSeoul (ANTARA News)

26/07/07

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono deplored the European Union (EU)`s recent decision to ban Indonesian airlines to fly to the EU region."I have received an explanation from the transportation minister after Europe issued the unilateral decision which I do not like. In international relations it is good if we respect each other.

Let us not take unilateral actions because we nead each other in global cooperation," the president said at a press conference here on Wednesday.President Yudhoyono called on all countries, including European countries, to cooperate and not to make unilateral decisions."The spirit of cooperation is not unilateral. I always convey this to friendly countries everywhere," he said.He said the government had already conducted an investigation and discovered that the EU decision was made because a director general at an Indonesian ministry had been too slow in responding to a letter. "The problem was caused by the slow response from the director general.

It is a matter of regret that such a thing has happened. Someone who has caused problems to the state had better quit his r position. Whoever he was, he has tarnished our image, and harmed our economy and transportation sector ," he said.The president said he had asked the transportation minister and the National Aviation Safety Team to conduct negotiations, including with Saudi Arabia which had almost made the same decision."Saudi Arabia did not do it.

Although they use the EU as a reference, because of its good relations with Indonesia. Saudi Arabia did not want to issue a ban," he said.Regarding the decision of the South Korea`s flight safety authorities to blacklist Garuda as a sub-standard airline in terms of safety the president director of the airline, Emirsyah Satar said that South Korea would continue to allow Garuda planes to fly into that country."There is no ban for Indonesian airlines` aircraft to land in any airport in that country," he said.He said he received the assurance from the president of South Korean Airlines, Young-Ho Kim in a meeting on Tuesday.(*)

Flights Ban Due To Lack Of Communication: Indonesian Minister (Malaysia National News Agency, Bernama.com)

By Mohd Nasir Yusoff
JAKARTA, July 23 (Bernama) -- The ban on Indonesian airlines' flights to Europe is the result of a lack of communication with the commercial flight authorities there, Indonesian Transport Minister Jussman Syafli Djamal said today.

He said the authorities in Europe had extended a certificate confirming that the Indonesian national flag carrier Garuda had good maintenance facilities."By right, they should scrutinise the data before imposing any ban because they themselves have acknowledged that Garuda has good maintenance facilities," he told reporters after inspecting the maintenance facilities of Garuda in Cengkareng near here."The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) gave the certificate in recognition of the excellence of the Garuda Maintenance Facility (GMF).

As such, they should not have categorised Garuda as an unknown airline," he said.Jusman said EASA was scheduled to send a flight safety audit team soon to Indonesia to review the ban on flights by Indonesian airlines to Europe.The European Union on July 6 imposed a ban on the flights after European air safety experts deemed the ban to be necessary after allegedly finding "serious" failings in maintenance, operating, certification and administrative standards.

EU flight ban only temporary: foreign minister. Yogyakarta (ANTARA News)

20/07/07

Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda said the flight ban imposed by the European Union on Indonesian airlines was only temporary and would not last long."With consultations, it is expected that the European Union will understand the efforts made by Indonesia in improving the flight safety of its airlines," the foreign minister said after commissioning a secondary school building here on Friday.The school building was built at a cost of Rp5.2 billion with funds contributed by the foreign ministry.

Wirayuda said the European Union was expected to review its flight ban because the policy was taken not based on political considerations but on the fact that the Indonesian flight safety team had revealed a problem in the country`s aviation system."What happened was there was lack of information because the European Union was not informed of the second report of the Indonesian aviation safety team which said that national flag carrier Garuda`s aircraft were airworthy," the foreign minister said.

He said the relevant parties had continued to hold consultations and the European Union would in the next one or two weeks send a team to Jakarta."The Foreign Ministry has sent a letter asking the European Union to have a discussion with us on the matter," Wirayuda said.The European Commission recently announced it was banning 51 Indonesian airline companies from flying to its member countries as of July 6, 2007 because of flight safety concerns.The EU experts recommended the ban in response to a series of air accidents in Indonesia earlier this year.Some quarters consider the ban to be a heavy blow to Indonesian airline companies and tourism. "Some four million European tourists visit Indonesia every year while the number of Indonesians visiting the continent is more than that," Gustanto M Hum, chairman of the Tourism Study Program of the University of North Sumatra, said recently.

ASEAN support sought on EU flight ban (The Jakarta Post)

20/07/07
DENPASAR: Indonesia is seeking support from its Southeast Asian neighbors to convince the European Union, which recently banned Indonesian carriers from flying into the EU, that the quality of its airlines is improving.

The ASEAN Transportation Working Group is meeting here until Friday. Transportation Ministry spokesman Bambang Supriyadi Ervan said Thursday that an EU representative, Klaus Gael, had been invited to the meeting despite the ban not being on the meeting's agenda.
At the meeting, talks were continued on liberalizing the airline industry in the region, the nations of which have committed to creating an ASEAN "Single Aviation Market" by 2015. The working group also discussed cooperation with non-ASEAN countries such as Japan, South Korea, India, China, the United States and the EU.

As for the ASEAN open sky policy, Ervan said the region had not yet reached an agreement on issues such as territorial boundaries, safeguard policies, final provisions and protocols 7 and 8 on the liberalization of the third and fourth freedoms of the air, which would open routes to every ASEAN city.

The third freedom is the right to carry passengers or cargo from one's own country to another, while the fourth freedom is the right to carry passengers or cargo from another country to one's own.

Indonesia offered the cities of Balikpapan, Batam, Biak, Makassar, Manado, Palembang and Pontianak for liberalization, insisting it wants the process to take place gradually. Malaysia and Singapore are calling for a faster, more immediate liberalization process. -- JP