Setback for open-skies policy

Indonesia's decision holds back Asean's plans to lift flight restrictions

By Karamjit Kaur
Aviation Correspondent

AMBITIOUS plans by the Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN) to lift regional flying restrictions on member- country airlines have hit a brick wall , stymieing the hoped-for boost to travel trade and tourism .
Indonesia , the biggest market within the group , has said it is not prepared to fully open its skies by 2015 , - The deadline the 10 Asean countries had agreed to in principle .
Mr Tri S. Sunoko , The Indonesian Transport Ministry's director of air transportation , told The Straits Times in a telephone interview : " What we will do by 2015 is to open up five of our key airports to Asean member carriers . Anything more will be done progressively after that . "
The five airports are in Jakarta , Medan , Bali , Surabaya and Makassar , in South Sulawesi . Indonesia has about 30 key airports .
Foreign carriers will also not be allowed to ply domestic routes.
As is the practice now , all other international flights to other points in Indonesia will be subject to government-to-government air deals that stipulate where a carrier can fly , how often and on what type of aircraft - because this determines passenger numbers .
Open skies under a single unified aviation market , Asian's ultimate goal , means that airlines would be able to fly freely over the region , transporting passengers and cargo from one airport to another .
Indonesia's decision to delay the development of a single Asean aviation market will hurt travellers , member countries and the bloc as a whole , experts said .
Associate Professor Alan Tan , an aviation law specialist from the National University of Singapore's Law Faculty , in urging Asean to move faster , said : " Liberalisation brings advantages such as greater competition between airlines , better choice and prices for consumers , and other sectors of the economy . "
An example is the Singapore-Kuala Lumpur air sector which was liberalised in December 2008 to allow low-cost carriers in . From $400 for a 45-minute return flight , fares- with all taxes and surcharges included - are now as low as less than $100 . Passengers traffic on the route also jumped by 34 percent last year compared with 2008, Benefiting businesses all round .
Ms Alicia Seah , senior vice-president of marketing and public relations at CTC Holidays , said that apart from adding capacity to popular destinations like Jakarta and Bali , other points in Indonesia such as Yogyakarta, which houses the ancient Hindu temple of Borobudur , are also becoming popular with leisure travellers .
But there is more at stake if Asean's plans for a single aviation market do not take off , experts said . The lack of open skies in Asean would impact ongoing air talks between the bloc and China , for example . These are proceeding apace , with the expectations of increased air travel between South-east Asia and China , as the latter's economy continues to boom .
But Indonesia- and to some extent , the Philippines- does not see the benefits of liberalisation accruing equally to all members . One fear is that if all restrictions are lifted , stronger carriers like Singapore Airlines would benefit more than the weaker ones , said Prof Tan .
Another concern is that countries and the markets they offer are hugely uneven . He noted : " Singapore is seen as offering only one point (Changi) . . . On the other hand , a country like Indonesia has 250 million people and tens , if not hundreds , of cities that foreign airlines can fly into . They do not therefore see the logic of exchanging all points in Indonesia for all points in Singapore . "
A spokesman for Singapore's Transport Ministry responded to this view , saying it is not important how many airports a country has .
More significant is that with direct connectivity to 149 international cities and a traffic volume of more than 37 million passengers , Singapore's Changi Airport is the seventh-largest airport in the world going by international passenger traffic , and second in the Asia-Pacific region .
Despite the slow progress at the group level , travellers have benefited with countries like Singapore , Malaysia , Thailand and Brunei opening up selected routes in recent years .
As for the Asean grand plan , talks will continue when the 10 transport ministers meet in Brunei later this year for their annual gathering.
karam@sph.com.sg , straits times home, Saturday, 8 may 2010.


Comments: I personally feel that the Asean's plans to lift fligh restrictions is a good plan that will benefit every country. Like Professor Alan Tan said: "Liberalisation brings advantages such as greater competition between airlines, better choice and prices for consumers, and knock-on benefits for tourism and other sectors of the economy." Other parts of Indonesia besides Jarkata and Bali has also become places of interest for leisure travellers. Therefore if Indonesia opens up their airports, they will also gain profit from it, so they should not think that if this restrictions are lifted, stronger carriers like Singapore Airlines will benefit more from it. Singapore is a small country so it only has one airport which Indonesia thinks that there is no logic to exchange all points in Indonesia for one point in Singapore. However, if Indonesia opens up, there will be place of interest for people to travel there and they will gain benefits.

Clement