Foreign airlines will not be allowed to serve domestic routes under the flight liberalization ASEAN Open Sky Policy in 2015. They are only allowed to serve international routes.

“This is a way to protect national airlines,” said the Director General of Air Transportation Herry Bakti S. Gumay in Jakarta, last Friday. Herry said that foreign airlines could only fly from abroad to five airports open for liberalization, including countries besides the country of origin of the airline.

However this also depends on flying slots at national airports. The government, he said, could refuse the entrance of foreign airlines if the slots were already filled. The government also helps national airlines to obtain regional route flying permits.

“If foreign airlines want to fly here, we also want national airlines to have a slot there,” he said. He said that the government has pushed Japan to provide a slot for Garuda Indonesia, which wishes to open a Jakarta-Tokyo direct route. A meeting with the Japanese authorities will be carried out this month. He is optimistic that Japan will fulfill Garuda Indonesia’s wishes.

“It appears that they want to give in, because we keep on pushing,” he said. Sriwijaya Air has also proposed a flying permit for the Palembang-Kuala Lumpur route. He said he considered that national airlines, such as Garuda Indonesia, Sriwijaya, Lion, Batavia and Mandala were capable of competing with foreign airlines. The transportation ministry plans to open five out of 26 international airports to be included in the flight liberalization. The five airports are Soekarno-Hatta, Polonia, Ngurah Rai, Juanda Surabaya, and Hasanuddin Makassar. The limitation is being carried out to protect national airlines.

Moreover there are ASEAN countries, like Singapore, that only have one international airport.

Source: Tempo interactive