Indonesia Has The Opportunity To Develop Air Cargo Transportation

JAKARTA - Indonesia needs to develop freight transport by air or air cargo. This can be seen that air cargo is not affected by the COVID-19 pandemic compared to airplane passenger transportation.

General Chair of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KADIN) for Transportation Sector who is also General Chair of the Indonesia National Air Carrier Association (INACA), Denon Prawiraatmadja said, after the pandemic, it was an opportunity for Indonesia to develop air freight services.

"At the time of the end of the pandemic, like now, these opportunities are wide open and can be utilized by flight operators at home and abroad," he said, quoting Antara, Wednesday, February 8.

According to him, from the data available until June 2022 air cargo only experienced a decrease of only 12 percent, this number is smaller when compared to the number of passengers and the number of flights in Indonesia during the COVID-19 Pandemic, where the number of passengers decreased by 32 percent and the number of flights fell to 28 percent.

He also explained that there are several opportunities and choices that can be utilized by airlines to be able to develop cargo transportation in Indonesia. Among them, Indonesia is in the form of an archipelago, in this case, the transportation of people and goods (cargo) is mostly done by plane.

"Then, in a larger reach, Indonesia is located between two continents so that the cargo transshipment business can be developed," he said.

Apart from these opportunities, said Denon, Indonesia has quite good economic and GDP growth. In the period 2016 – 2045, the Government of Indonesia predicts economic growth of 5.7 percent per year, so that Indonesia can become the 4th largest economy in the world in 2045.

It is said that the next opportunity is that the number of e-commerce businesses in Indonesia in 2021 will be 2,868,178 businesses, an increase of 22 percent from 2,361,423 businesses in 2020. As many as 68 percent of e-commerce products are sent to buyers, of which 55 percent are sent to Java Island and the rest outside Java Island.

The last opportunity, said Denon, is that the aviation infrastructure is getting better. Where currently there are 252 airports and plans to build 50 new airports. Currently, there are 351 domestic routes to 128 destinations and 126 international routes to 54 overseas cities.

"In Indonesia's geographical position which is between two continents, it can be developed for the cargo transshipment business to replace Singapore. Airports that can be developed for cargo transshipment are in Bali and the National Capital or IKN," he concluded.