REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, TANGERANG -- National carrier Garuda Indonesia will be flying from Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, starting from Jan 15, 2019. CEO of Garuda Indonesia I Gusti Ngurah Ashkara Danadiputra stated that the move was carried out following the decision to move Citilink Indonesia carrier to Terminal 1 of Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Tangerang, Banten.

"As per Jan 15 decision, (Garuda) will enter Halim, and the routes will follow Citilink's former one," the CEO, popularly known as Ari Askara, stated in a discussion in Tangerang, Banten, on Tuesday.

The routes that will be operating from Halim Perdanakusuma Airport, he continued, are shorter routes, such as Jakarta-Solo or Jakarta-Yogyakarta, considering the limited capacity in the airport.

"If we have the further routes operating, such as Makassar for example, once we have a delayed flight, it will end up taking too much time because the flight itself can take two hours," he explained.

He will also be coordinating with Batik Air, which has started operating in the Halim Perdanakusuma Airport earlier, to possibly reduce their flight operations.

"I will talk to the management of Batik Air and try to have them reduce their flights as the airport activities are very dense already. My concern is on the safety aspect," he added.

In terms of clearance, he revealed that he had talked to Chief of Staff of the Air Force as the airport is also often used for VIP flights.

"There are a lot of VIPs, business actors and CEOs that go in and out of the airport as it is the one closest to business areas in Jakarta, and most of the market segment is middle-up," he explained.

Garuda Indonesia will begin operating the Boeing 737-New Generation airplane for the flight to and from Halim Perdanakusuma, as airlines are not allowed to operate Airbuses there.

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