President Inspects Construction of Soekarno-Hatta Airport`s Third Runway

Tangerang, MINA — President Joko Widodo on Thursday inspected the construction of Soekarno-Hatta Airport`s third runway, Antara News reported.

“Soekarno-Hatta Airport is the busiest airport in our country. As we know, the development of air passengers in the country has reached some nine percent, which is such a fast growth,” the president stated at the construction site at Soekarno-Hatta Airport.

The airport has two construction projects, a three thousand-meter long runway project and 3,160-meter-long taxi way, which would need at least Rp1.5 trillion of fund.

Construction of the runway started in March, and it still faced some problems regarding land release.

“We continue to construct new airport and new terminals. Among the airports that we developed is Soekarno-Hatta Airport. What we have seen in our experience is that we have to queue up for 20 to 30 minutes before taking off,” he added.

The president has expressed his hope that the development of a new taxi way would cut short the airplane`s waiting time before take-off.

“The land release process has been 70 percent completed. The construction has been started, and we hope that this parallel taxi way could be finalized by the end of December 2018. While (construction of) the third runway is expected to be completed in June 2019,” he stated.

Expected no more queue

Development of the third runway is expected to increase the number of airplanes taking off and landing in the airport, from 80 airplanes per hour, to some 120 aircraft per hour currently.

“After we finish the construction of the third runway, there would be no more queues. But if the number of passengers increases, we will develop more runways. The growth of air transportation in our country has reached nine percent. We have to anticipate this,” Jokowi said.

The airport`s capacity would need to be improved as more foreign visitors come to Indonesia through Soekarno-Hatta Airport.

“Therefore, the construction of the third runway would increase flights to Indonesia,” the president elaborated. (T/RS5/RS1)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)