Relax - Jakarta airport fights big flood of social problems

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TRAFFIC-MIRED motorists are not the only travellers feeling beleaguered in Jakarta.

The authorities at Indonesia’s Soekarno-Hatta International Airport have asked the government to help overcome robustly growing social problems at the country’s aviation gateway.

Roch Agus, the security chief for vital objects and perimeter at the airport, said that airport security officers managed to net a stunning 19,391 violators of public order at the airport last year.

Among the violators were a mind-popping 7,829 street vendors, 407 illegal porters, 1,392 shoe polishers, 1,663 ticket scalpers, 1,177 drivers of cars whose wheels had to be locked, 6,169 illegal taxis and 227 scavengers.

“We will never give up but we frankly admit that we can never handle social problems at the airport without the central government’s assistance,” said Mr Haryanto, an airport general executive manager, on Monday.

Mr Haryanto said that the social problems continue to worsen the airport’s battered image.

He said airport operator PT Angkasa had already addressed, in 2007, some of the worst complaints about the facility by improving cleanliness and comfort at the terminals.

“Since 2009, there have been no more complaints about dirty toilets and terminals. This year, we began to improve passengers’ security and safety by operating a screening checkpoint for all passengers at the terminals,” he said.

Some implausible plaudits have also come the airport’s way. Despite numerous complaints about its meagre services, for instance, it is good at one thing: punctuality.

Luxury-travel news portal forbestraveler.com last year announced that the airport was the second most on-time international airport worldwide, according to data from FlightStats, an Oregon-based company that tracks flight information for airports and airlines around the world.

The portal ranked Soekarno-Hatta below only the reigning champion, Tokyo’s Haneda Airport, and above Narita, which came in third.

The data defined an on-time airport as one having the most flights less than 15 minutes late.

The same yardstick is used by the Geneva-based Airports Council International.

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Jakarta airport fights big flood of social problems

my paper | Wed, May 26 2010

There were more than 19,000 violations of public order at the airport last year.

Jakarta airport fights big flood of social problems

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soekarno-hatta airport