To achieve the target of one million tourists coming to East Java province, state-owned airport operator PT Angkasa Pura I is planning to make an improvement at Juanda International Airport.

“The company has finished the master plan for Juanda Airport expansion. The supporting facilities have also been prepared. Everything is done to improve the experience of tourists coming to East Java, the target number is one million tourists,” said PT Angkasa Pura I commercial and development director, M. Asrori.

Asrori said that the company is currently applying for the airport city permit. Once the building construction permit (IMB) is issued, the next step will be land acquisition.

“The new area of Juanda Airport is expected to be 1,700 hectares and located in the northern part of the airport. The land acquisition is expected to be finalized by 2018. The two airport runways have to be more than 1,000 meters so that airplanes can land there,” added Asrori.

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AP I has also increased the traffic movement from 25 to 27 per hour. As for the Idul Adha holiday, Asrori predicted the increase in the number of passengers would be around 12 to 15 percent and five percent increase on airplanes.

From the data collected, the average daily traffic for this year is 395 airplanes and 48,293 passengers.

“The increase in passengers is expected to happen on August 31 and September 3. We’ve predicted that there will be about 60,800 people, 55,250 of whom are domestic tourists and the rest 5,750 people are overseas tourists with the increase is about 12 to 15 percent,” Asrori said.

Moreover, there will be around 416 airplanes flying in and out during this long-weekend period, with 380 serving domestic flights and 36 international flights.

“The busiest routes are in Jakarta, Makassar, Balikpapan, Denpasar, Banjarmasin and Lombok. Meanwhile, for international flights, there have been an increase to destinations such as Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong,” Asrori said. (asw)