JAKARTA - Chairman of Commission V DPR RI Lasarus admitted that he had received many complaints about the high price of domestic flight tickets.
He said, the reason for the high ticket price was due to the limited number of aircraft so that the supply and demand in the aviation sector was not balanced.
"Indeed, we have received a lot of complaints about this ticket. It is the Ministry of Transportation's job to maintain the field so that the situation in our world of aviation remains conducive and grows again quickly," he said during a working meeting of Commission V DPR RI with the Minister of Transportation at the DPR Building, Senayan, Jakarta, Wednesday, January 18.
Lasarus said, the reduced number of Garuda Indonesia aircraft is around 100 units, of which currently only about 30 units have an impact on the aviation industry in the country.
Furthermore, Lasarus explained, this condition made other airlines that survive take advantage of the momentum to increase ticket prices.
Moreover, several state-owned airlines experience various problems each.
For example, said Lasarus, Merpati Nusantara Airlines, which was declared bankrupt last year.
Meanwhile, Pelita Air is known to have few aircraft units.
As a result, it is difficult for the government to intervene in the price of airplane tickets on the market.
Limitation on the number of units also occurred on ATR aircraft. Ticket prices for this aircraft are also high.
The price of aircraft tickets for the Pontianak-Sintang flight route is more expensive than the Pontianak-Jakarta route. Even though the flight duration is shorter, which is 40 minutes. Meanwhile, flights from Pontianak to Jakarta take 1 hour 10 minutes," he said.
Lasarus hopes that the Ministry of Transportation will immediately supervise airline entrepreneurs.
This is because it is very important to encourage economic growth.
We have to take care of this. How can people easily move anywhere, so that then both human displacement and easy goods. We are talking about wanting to rise from adversity due to the COVID-19 pandemic," he said.
It is known, from a total of 142 Garuda aircraft as of 2019, the number has decreased to 34 units as of June 2022.
After Garuda passed the postponement of debt payment obligations (PKPU), management began to restore the number of aircraft, until December 2022, the number of aircraft operated by Garuda increased to 53 units.
Previously reported, Garuda Indonesia President Director Irfan Setiaputra said the company projects that it will maximize a number of outlooks for corporate strategic plans, including through the addition of production equipment capacity.
"In 2023, the company targets to operate at least 66 fleets outside the fleet of six fleets," he told reporters, Tuesday, January 3.
In addition, Irfan said the company will also continue to maximize its strategic hub-based network development strategy, by strengthening flight connectivity to flight destinations with high passenger demand from a number of strategic flight hubs in Indonesia including Jakarta, Denpasar, Makassar to Kualanamu (Medan).
"We also optimize these efforts by maximizing the operation of large-bodied aircraft on flight routes with positive performance," he explained.
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