Jokowi Has Not Yet Arrived IKN Airport, Minister Of Transportation: There Are Stages

Minister of Transportation Budi Karya Sumadi (Photo: Antara)

JAKARTA - Minister of Transportation (Menhub) Budi Karya Sumadi opened up about the preparation of IKN Nusantara Airport, East Kalimantan for presidential aircraft. He said there were stages carried out.

Budi said that for the past two weeks, his party was busy calibrating and testing flights at IKN Airport. This is done to find out the extent of the carrying capacity of IKN Airport to be able to operate.

"So if we build there are stages. So in the last one or two weeks we have made calibrations for the airport's supporting capacity. And what we are doing is in accordance with applicable regulations," he said. met at the DPR Building, Jakarta, Friday, September 20.

Budi said that until now a series of landing trials have been carried out. Budi said the same qualification plane exactly as the Indonesian Presidential Aircraft would be tested to land at IKN.

Furthermore, Budi said that if the trial went smoothly, President Joko Widodo's (Jokowi) plane could land at the airport.

"Further stages will be carried out. Today, a landing test will be carried out from an aircraft with the same capacity as the presidential plane. This means that if today goes well, the presidential plane will land there," he said.

"Everything we do carefully considering this is an airport that is very special, so we do it systematically and God willing, it can go well," he continued.

Previously, President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) admitted that he wanted to land at the new airport in the capital city of Nusantara (IKN), East Kalimantan yesterday. However, the airport has not made it possible to accommodate the presidential plane.

As is known, Jokowi flew to IKN on Thursday, September 12. His arrival was to lead the plenary cabinet session which was held this morning.

"Yesterday I actually wanted to get off at a new airport. But it turned out that it was not possible," he said in a speech at the inauguration ceremony of the Swiss Nusantara Hotel, quoted from the Presidential Secretariat's YouTube, Friday, September 13.

Jokowi said he still had to wait for the IKN airport to test the landing and take off with an aircraft the same size as a side plane.

"So we are still waiting for the landing and take off experiments from the planes that tried it. So indeed the plane we are traveling on has not been able to get off at the Nusantara Airport," he explained.