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Safety alert for Indonesia airlines
Six airlines given three months to improve safety standards or face closure.
Last Modified: 23 Mar 2007 11:34 GMT

Budget carrier Adam Air is among the six
airlines given a deadline to improve [EPA]

Six Indonesian airlines have been given a three month deadline to improve safety standards or face closure.
 
Among the airlines listed in the government order is budget carrier Adam Air, which lost one of its aircraft with 102 passengers and crew onboard on January 1 off the island of Sulawesi.
Budhi Muliawan Suyitno, Indonesia's civil aviation chief, said of 54 companies audited, none made it to the first of three safety categories.
 
"If there's no improvement within three months, there will be a suspension order, and if there's still no improvement they will be shut down," he said.
Airlines on notice
  • Adam Air
  • Kartika Airlines
  • Jatayu
  • Batavia
  • Trans Wisata Air
  • Dirgantara
Fifteen companies, including six scheduled passenger airlines, were placed in the lowest category and were considered to have met only minimal standards of safety.
 
The National carrier, Garuda Indonesia, made the second grade.
 
The six airlines facing a three month deadline are Adam Air, Kartika Airlines, Jatayu, Batavia, Trans Wisata Air and Dirgantara.
 
Hard landing
 
The audit was ordered by the government to evaluate transport safety following a string of deadly air accidents in recent months.
 
Aside from the Adam Air crash off Sulawesi, another of the airline's jets was badly damaged in a hard landing at Surabaya airport in February, although none of the passengers suffered serious injury.
 
Earlier this month, a Garuda aircraft overshot the runway at Yogyakarta airport and burst into flames, killing 21 people.
 
Air travel in Indonesia, which is made up of more than 17,000 islands, has grown massively since the liberalisation of the airline industry in 1999 which triggered price wars covering domestic routes.
 
The rapid growth and price-cutting raised questions over whether safety was being compromised, and if aviation infrastructure and personnel could cope with the huge increase.
 
Indonesia is also grappling with problems in other modes of transportation.
 
There have been two serious ferry disasters in recent months killing hundreds of people, while rail accidents on an ageing system built during the Dutch colonial era occur frequently.
Source:
Agencies
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