RI, ICAO Join Hands to Enhance Aviation Safety

Just days after an announcement that Indonesian airlines were banned from flying to Europe due to safety concerns, the Indonesian government and the International Aviation Organization (ICAO) signed a joint declaration here on Monday to enhance aviation safety in the country.

After the signing, ICAO Council president Roberto Kobeh Gonzales said Indonesia's civil aviation problems stemmed from the massive expansion the local industry has seen in the past five years and which had put heavy pressure on regulators trying to keep pace with the demands of a rapidly expanding market.

Gonzales said that Indonesia needed to show it had a strong political will to improve its aviation sector.

"Indonesia must act quickly and decisively to regain the confidence of the world's aviation community and the traveling public," he said on the sidelines of Indonesia's Strategic Summit on Civil Aviation Services.

Indonesia is one of the ICAO Council's 190 contracting states.

Under the joint declaration, the government will strengthen the Transportation Ministry's Directorate General of Civil Aviation's safety oversight capabilities.

To achieve that, director general of civil aviation Budi Mulyawan Suyitno said that the government is increasing the budget for safety to Rp 900 billion next year, from Rp 500 billion this year.

The government will also comply with ICAO rules that require member states to establish safety management programs for all players, including traffic service providers, aerodrome and aircraft operators as well as maintenance organizations.

The country has seen a string of plane accidents this year, with two major crashes occurring in the first three months.

The European Commission announced last week that it planned to ban all 51 Indonesian airlines from flying to Europe after its air safety experts deemed them unsafe.

The ban will be official when the commission endorses the experts' recommendation to ban Indonesian airlines on July 6 by adding them to the EU's list of unsafe airlines.

The ban, if implemented, would seriously affect Indonesia's tourism sector, although a number of countries, including Australia, one of the main sources of tourists, have stated that they will not follow the EU's path.

The Australian government said in a statement Monday that the EU's decision had no direct relevance to Australia as only Garuda Indonesia currently flies to Australia, and Australia has no concerns about its safety record.

"We will examine what the Europeans have decided and what the basis of it is," the statement said. "But at this stage we have no reason to alter our arrangements in relation to Garuda."

The EU's plan came as Garuda Indonesia considered the reestablishment of its Amsterdam service, which was terminated in 2004 as the airline was losing money.

According to the government's latest airline safety survey, Garuda is the only airline that meets the safety standards adapted from the ICAO.

Transportation Minister Jusman Syafii Djamal said the government would send a new team to Europe to brief them on the real Indonesian aviation safety situation.

"We were very disappointed with the decision, especially since it was publicly announced before we received official notification," he said here Monday at the opening of the summit. (The Jakarta Post)