INDONESIAN carriers will be allowed to fly once more to the United States after the country’s safety rating has been upgraded by the US Federal Aviation Administration, according to Indonesian media reports.
Indonesian news agency Antara quoted the director of airworthiness and plane operations at the Indonesian Transportation Ministry’s Directorate General of Air Transportation, Mohammad Alwi, as saying the South-east Asian nation had been upgraded from category 2 to category 1. The upgrade was subsequently confirmed by the Jakarta Post.
"After 10 years of efforts, we finally passed it and the US ambassador has congratulated me on it," Alwi told the news agency, adding that the FAA was due to officially present a certificate of aviation rating. "After we have seen four ministers and four director generals being replaced, the efforts were finally successful. I have told Jonan (former Transportation Minister Ignatius Jonan) that I have accomplished my duties for the FAA."
Garuda expected to be an early beneficiary of the change with airline’s president, Arif Wibowo, saying previously it would open flight routes linking Jakarta to New York and Los Angeles in 2017.
Indonesia was demoted by the US in 2007 to category 2 and banned from flying to the European Union after a series of crashes and concerns about the oversight of the country’s safety systems. An International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) uudit of Indonesia’s aviation authority at that time uncovered 120 instances of failing to comply with international safety standards.
Part of the problem has been a massive expansion of aviation in the populous nation, which consists of thousands of islands. And while flying on some Indonesian carriers may now be considered safer, there are still concerns about others.
While the EU lifted the ban on Indonesian flag carrier Garuda in 2010 and widened the exemptions this year, all but seven Indonesian airlines remained banned after a review of the EU safety list in June. Those not on the banned list are Garuda, Airfast Indonesia, Ekspres Transportasi Antarbenua, Indonesia Air Asia, Citilink, Lion Air and Batik Air.
Arnold Barnett, an MIT statistician specialising in airline safety, told The New York Times in late 2014 that the death rate in plane crashes in Indonesia was one per million passengers or 25 times the rate in the US.
