VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Minister of Transportation, Budi Karya Sumadi, said he hoped the newly inaugurated Yogyakarta International Airport (YAI) would attract domestic and foreign tourists, thereby helping aid economic recovery amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The new airport is located about 60 kilometers from the Borobudur Temple, one of Indonesia's five super-priority tourist destinations.

The means of transportation connecting YIA and Borobudur Temple must be improved by paying attention to and prioritizing health protocols to prevent COVID-19 transmission, the minister said in a statement here on Friday.

The government has made provisions for the operation of Damri shuttle buses, SetelQu, airport taxis, online taxis, and trains via Wojo station (about 10 minutes from the airport) to connect the airport with Borobudur, he added.

In future, the train line will directly enter the airport area, he continued.

"With this intermodal connectivity, we hope to restore the national economy by attracting more tourists to Yogyakarta. We are optimistic that in future, Yogyakarta International Airport will be able to have a positive impact on the national economy as well as improve the welfare of the community, especially in the surrounding Yogyakarta region and Indonesia in general," Sumadi stated.

He lauded state-owned airport operator PT Angkasa Pura I for providing a tenant area measuring 1,500 square meters at a YIA terminal, which can accommodate 300 MSMEs, and an area of 880 square meters in the Liaison Building, which can accommodate 170 MSMEs. The tenant area is named Kotagede Market.

As a substitute for the old Adisutipto Airport, YIA has built a Passenger Terminal with an area of 219,000 square meters, which can serve 20 million passengers per year, with an investment of Rp10.08 trillion.

For air-side facilities, the airport runway has dimensions of 3,250 meters x 45 meters with a PCN value of 93 F / C / X /, so it can serve even the heaviest and largest aircraft such as the Boeing B-777 and the Airbus A380.

The Yogyakarta International Airport currently serves 20 domestic routes and two international routes, namely Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, and has great potential to add domestic routes (Manado, Kupang, Labuan Bajo) and international routes, such as Jeddah, Medina, Sydney, Melbourne, Hong Kong, and Bangkok, the minister said.

For flight navigation services, the airport has an ATC tower building, administration building, and operational building, built on an area of 15,651 square meters with an investment of Rp87.1 billion.

The eight-floor ATC tower building is 39.5 meters tall and is equipped with facilities such as tower set, radar monitoring, VHF radio, direct speech telephone, and ATIS.

The airport has been structurally designed to withstand earthquakes, tsunamis, liquefaction, volcanic ash eruptions, and floods. Its design has involved a panel of experts from Japan and an Academic Expert Team from the University of Gadjah Mada (UGM), the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB), the Surabaya Institute of Technology (ITS), and the University of Diponegoro (UNDIP). The airport is also equipped with a Crisis Center building.

Parts of the airport feature local traditional art works and local wisdoms, represented by the Jasmine flower and Wijayakusuma (Epiphyllum oxypetalum), designed by 46 local artists from Yogyakarta. (ANTARA)