Franco-Italian turboprop aircraft manufacturer ATR has identified 209 new domestic air routes across Indonesia that could be economically viable using regional turboprop aircraft. The manufacturer points to an untapped annual market of roughly 16 million passengers, which exists despite the presence of operational airport infrastructure.
According to ATR's findings, 70 of Indonesia’s 180 airports with paved runways currently have no scheduled passenger services. This indicates significant potential for new domestic connections without requiring major investments in airport infrastructure. The results were obtained from ATR’s MobilityMonitor platform, which analyzed the travel habits of 35 million Indonesian residents who completed about 780 million inter-city trips in a year.
The platform's findings indicate that approximately 90% of those inter-city journeys fell between 100 and 800 kilometers, a distance range well suited for turboprop operations. Furthermore, 88% of the identified potential routes, representing 14 million passengers annually, are intra-island connections rather than inter-island links. About 90% of these routes are located on islands other than Java, including Sumatra, Sulawesi, Kalimantan, Papua, and Maluku.
This geographical distribution highlights Indonesia's infrastructure disparities. While Java covers only 7% of the land area, it contains 58% of the country’s motorway network, allowing surface travel speeds to reach 65 kilometers per hour. In contrast, Kalimantan is four times larger than Java but has only 5% of the motorways, with surface speeds on outer islands dropping to between 26 and 37 kilometers per hour.
ATR identified Sumatra and Sulawesi as the most promising markets for regional air service development. For instance, traveling by road between Bengkulu (BKS (BKS)) and Pekanbaru (PKU (PKU)) in Sumatra takes more than 18 hours, whereas a direct flight would take approximately one hour. ATR estimates this route could support two daily flights. Alexis Vidal, ATR’s Senior Vice-President, Commercial, noted that both demand and airport infrastructure are present, and the market now requires appropriate aircraft to bridge these mobility gaps.
