Jakarta aims to become major Southeast Asian transit hub

Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (SHIA) is aiming to become a major transit hub for international transits, state-owned airport services Angkasa Pura II (AP II) said. AP II says the opening of the airport's new 42 hectare IDR10t (US$700m) Ultimate Terminal 3 in May 2016 will immediately give the airport an extra 15m passenger per annum capacity, reaching 25m once fully operational in 2017. AP II CE Budi Karya Sumadi said management is committed to making SHIA a viable competitor for existing regional hubs like Singapore’s Changi Airport and Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur International (KLIA). “We want to make [SHIA] a transit airport, not for the cities in Indonesia, but for cities of the world,” he said. Budi said Jakarta handled 12m transit passengers a year compared to KLIA’s nearly 20-plus million transit passengers. <br/>