New Jakarta airport construction to start next year
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![Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta airport is currently operating over-capacity](https://traveldailymedia.com/assets/2013/10/Jakarta-airport-300x228.jpg)
The development of a new international airport serving Jakarta is expected to commence next year, Indonesian government officials have said.
Local media reported this week that a planned review of the new Karawang International Airport project is close to completion, and that potential investors will be approached in 2014. Following this process, work is expected to start “immediately”.
“We cannot wait any longer because the growth of the aviation industry is twice as large as the economy. We need more infrastructure. We expect to begin market sounding to investors in the first or second quarter of 2014 so that we can construct it immediately,” the Jakarta Post reported Indonesia’s air transportation director-general, Herry Bakti S. Gumay, as saying.
The new West Java airport is being developed to ease the pressure at Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, which is currently operating at more than double its intended capacity of 22 million passengers per year. While Soekarno-Hatta is also being expanded, passenger numbers at Jakarta are experiencing double-digit year-on-year growth, driving the need for a second airport.
The construction of Karawang International Airport, approximately 50km east of Jakarta, was originally planned to begin this year, but was delayed pending the final review.
According to Gumay, the new airport will be developed in several phases, eventually reaching a capacity of 70 million passengers per year. With the capacity of Soekarno-Hatta also expected to reach 70 million, this would make Jakarta one of the best connected cities in the world.
It is one of two new airports planned for the West Java region, with Kertajati International Airport expected to replace Bandung’s overcrowded Husein Sastranegara International Airport.
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