Air Safety
Not good enough IATA boss tells Indonesia
April 1st 2015
International Air Transport Association (IATA) director general Tony Tyler pulled no punches when he opened an aviation gathering in Jakarta in March. Read More »
An unusually plain speaking Tyler, regarded globally as the industry’s ultimate diplomat, called on the Indonesian aviation industry to act as one in developing a national aviation master plan for improving safety, resolving airport and airway capacity issues and bringing the nation’s regulatory framework up to world standards.
He told delegates safety is aviation’s top priority and the biggest concern for the successful development of aviation in Indonesia. “Indonesia has had at least one hull loss every year since 2010,” Tyler said.
“In the International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO) Universal Safety Oversight Audit Program (USOAP), Indonesia was assessed as below the global average. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has downgraded Indonesia to Category 2 in its International Aviation Safety Assessment program. And the European Union continues to ban all but five Indonesian carriers.”
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| IATA director general and CEO, Tony Tyler: “Indonesia has had at least one hull loss every year since 2010.” |
Speaking at an IATA-organized Aviation Day, Tyler highlighted Indonesia’s failure to implement some international conventions. An example was the Montreal Convention 1999 (MC99), a comprehensive instrument that governs liability in 110 states. Under MC99, the compensation limit for personal injury or death is set at around $160,000.
“Indonesia AirAsia flight QZ8501, which crashed into the Java Sea on December 28, is an accident that provides a very sad example of the consequences of Indonesia’s failure to implement MC99,” Tyler said.
“The families of passengers who had bought return tickets from Singapore were covered under the MC99 limit. But the families of those who purchased their tickets and started their journeys in Indonesia have a treaty cap of around $12,000. I understand the Indonesian government took special measures to increase this amount, but having a treaty in place would have been a better solution.”
He urged the government to ratify MC99 as a priority, especially as the potential of Indonesian aviation is huge. By 2034, it is forecast the country will be the sixth largest market for air travel in the world. By then, some 270 million passengers are expected to fly to, from and within the country. “That’s three times the size of today’s market. There is a big role for collective leadership among industry partners - including the government - to make the aviation sector flourish,” said Tyler.
He said IATA is investing in improving air safety in Indonesia, but the country was not taking full advantage of its offered support. “The IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) is a global standard and is at the core of our efforts to improve safety,” he said.
“But of all the Indonesian airlines operating scheduled or chartered flights, only Garuda is on the IOSA registry.”
Indonesia’s traffic growth needs to be supported by aviation infrastructure, both on the ground and in the air. For Indonesia this means building a world-class hub, managing scarce capacity to global standards and modernizing air traffic management, he said.
He commended the government for its plans to expand infrastructure: building another 62 airports over the next five years and approving terminal expansions at Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta International Airport.
“But the capacity problem in Jakarta is nowhere near being solved, even with the terminal upgrades. Indonesia needs a hub. The most efficient solution is to maximize the potential of one airport, Soekarno Hatta, where significant investment has been made. The terminal areas will, however, need major re-development,” he said.
“The vision would be something like the super-terminals we see in Beijing, Hong Kong or Incheon. I am confident that we would achieve a world-class facility designed around key new technological innovations such as those in the IATA Fast Travel program or the new risk-based process innovations that Smart Security is developing.”
| Indonesia should review its slot allocation system Unfortunately, said Tony Tyler, the director general and CEO of IATA, there are a large number of instances where Indonesia is not playing by established international aviation rules. “There are two slot management processes at Indonesian airports - one for domestic flights and another for international flights - even though both are managing the same runway capacity,” he said. “There is no independent slot coordinator at the airports. The IATA team is ready to assist with the introduction of professional and independent slot coordination, which could bring the working procedures into line with global standards.” |
