Increase The Number Of Passengers, AP I Extension Of Operational Hours At Lombok Airport

Illustration (Photo: Doc. Antara)

MATARAM - PT Angkasa Pura I extended the service and operational time at Zainuddin Abdul Majid Lombok International Airport, West Nusa Tenggara, as an effort to increase the number of passengers.

"Usually operating hours start at 08.00-17.00 WITA, now they are 06.00-20.00 WITA," said General Manager (GM) of Zainuddin Abdul Majid International Airport, Rahmat Adil Indrawan, quoted from Antara, Wednesday, September 21.

According to him, the extension of operating hours began with the policy of increasing avtur prices.

This effort is one of the tactics to increase the number of passengers who have decreased since the increase in aviation fuel prices.

"Since the avtur rose, passengers have decreased by around 500-700 per day," he said.

Related to that, his party tried to extend operating hours and this has also been socialized to all airlines, although it turns out that these efforts have not been able to maximize passenger traffic on par with when before the increase in aviation equipment.

"Moreover, now there is a rule that airplane passengers must have had a three-dose COVID-19 (booster) vaccine," he said.

In fact, he continued, after the COVID-19 pandemic began to slow down, the number of passengers was almost normal, reaching more than 6,000 per day.

Before the pandemic, the average number of passengers per day reached 8,000 people.

"But after the aviation avtur, passengers dropped to around 5,000 to 5,500 people per day," he said.

Related to this, he hopes that airlines can also provide information on the extension of airport operating hours to increase the number of passengers.

"If the number of passengers cannot return to normal as before COVID-19, at least it can return to what it was before the avtur rose. Moreover, now we are excited to revive the economy in the midst of a pandemic," concluded Rahmat.