Passenger Trends Increase, Christmas And New Year's Transportation Services In Sorong Papua Runs Smoothly

The trend of the number of public transport passengers in Sorong, Papua has increased significantly during the Christmas and New Year holidays this time.

"Based on the monitoring we carried out at ports and airports, although the number of passengers has increased, in general public transport services are running smoothly, safely, and under control," said Secretary General Novie Riyanto in Sorong, Papua, Sunday, December 25.

Secretary General Novie conducted a review of Sorong Port and Domine Eduard Osok Airport (DEO), in order to monitor and evaluate the Nataru 2022/2023 transportation.

At DEO Airport, there is a trend of increasing air transport passengers which is dominated by routes to and from Ambon, Makassar, and Jakarta.

"The airport manager (UPBU) Sorong has coordinated with airlines to alert additional aircraft, in order to anticipate a surge in passengers," said Novie.

Meanwhile, at Sorong Port, to anticipate a surge in ship passengers, the Sorong Harbormaster Office and Port Authority (KSOP), have alerted navigation ships and marine and coast guard unit ships (KPLP), which will be used as spare ships if passenger ship capacity is inadequate.

"But until now, the existing passenger ships are still able to serve the surge in passengers," said Novie.

Based on data, the number of ships operating in Sorong Port was 57 ships, or an increase of 21.28 percent from the number of ships in the previous year, which was 47 ships.

The total number of ship passengers also increased by 80.88 percent or 26,550 passengers compared to the previous year, which was 14,678 passengers.