Airline Ticket Prices Contribute To Inflation Of Up To 0.1 Percent, Head Of BKF Ministry Of Finance: Small Impact, But We'll Monitor

Head of the Fiscal Policy Agency of the Ministry of Finance Febrio Kacaribu (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - Head of the Fiscal Policy Agency of the Ministry of Finance (Kemenkeu) Febrio Kacaribu said the Ministry of Transportation's policy of allowing airlines to increase air ticket fares only contributed to inflation. The amount is around 0.06 percent to 0.1 percent of inflation.

Based on the Decree of the Minister of Transportation Number 142 of 2022 which was issued on August 4, 2022, the government allowed airlines to collect additional tariffs for jet aircraft with a maximum portion of 15 percent of the upper limit fare. Meanwhile, the propeller plane is a maximum of 25 percent of the upper limit rate.

"The impact we are monitoring is relatively small on inflation, but we will continue to monitor it because we have to ensure that we can control the policies that we can control," said Febrio in an online BKF Question event quoted by Antara, Monday, August 8.

People, especially the middle class, are starting to do a lot of activities and travel by airplane, considering that they have saved quite a lot of money during the last two years when the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

Due to the sharp increase in the mobility of the middle class, he assessed that economic activity in Indonesia also had a very large impact.

On the other hand, airline ticket prices are starting to increase and have little effect on inflation, although the role of airline ticket prices is very limited to Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation.

"Compared to the shopping basket of the Indonesian people in general as many as 270 million people, airline tickets are a relatively small component there," he added.

Therefore, Febrio emphasized that the current government's main focus is to monitor inflation in terms of volatile food prices, which tend to have a direct impact on the majority of people, especially the poor and vulnerable.

The government continues to prioritize this by ensuring that food supplies will be maintained in the next few months.