Antara News, Otniel Tamindael, Wednesday, February 24, 2010 08:17 WIB
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The runway of Purpura Airport in Pulau Kisar, Southwest Maluku (MBD) district, needs to be expanded to support the upcoming international marine event "Sail Banda 2010".
Pulau Kisar is a small, remote island of the southern part of Maluku Province in eastern Indonesia. It lies just off the northeast coast of Timor-Leste, and although traditionally very hard to get to, it now has a small airport, called Purpura and located on the northern tip of the small island.
Purpura airport in Pulau Kisar receives flights from Maluku`s provincial capital of Ambon and East Nusa Tenggara (NTT)`s provincial capital of Kupang.
Flights go Mondays and Fridays from Ambon (1 hour, 45 minutes) with Merpati Nusantara Airlines. Passenger ships also call at Pulau Kisar`s Nama and Jawalan ports from Ambon, Kupang and Surabaya.
Parts of Pulau Kisar have that untouched look and it is generally only adventurous people who would make the boat trip of several days from Ambon to Kisar.
It is a small, rocky island and, along with neighboring Pulau Wetar, it is one of the remotest in the country, being a lot closer to Australia`s Northern Territory city of Darwin than to Ambon, for instance.
The airport at the MBD district town of Wonreli in Pulau Kisar needs to be expanded to support Sail Banda 2010 but the Transportation Ministry has yet to allocate funds from the 2010 state budget for the project.
"The Transportation Ministry has actually received the proposal of Kisar`s airport expansion from MBD acting district head Frangky Rejaan, but the funds from the 2010 state budget have yet to be allocated," Maluku Transportation Office chief Benny Gaspersz said in the eastern Indonesian city of Ambon on Tuesday.
Gaspersz said the expansion of Purpura airport`s runway was a strategic way to support Sail Banda 2010 and therefore the Transportation Ministry should wisely channel the funds in accordance with existing mechanism.
"Thus to allocate the funds for Kisar`s airport expansion, a team from Air Transportation Directorate General at the Transportation Ministry should first make a survey," Gaspersz said, calling on MBD district administration and the local people to be patient.
Gaspersz said he understood that the expansion of Kisar`s airport runway was strategic to step up air transportation service to the island by operating bigger aircrafts than Cassa 212 plane being operated by Merpati Nusantara Airlines.
"If the runway of Purpura airport in Pulau Kisar is extended from 800 meters to 1,300 meters, ATR 42 aircraft with 40 seats, operated by PT Wings Air will be able to make a landing there," Gaspersz said.
MBD acting district head Franky Rejaan said on a separate occasion that the local administration was expanding the runway of Purpura airport to support Sail Banda 2010 scheduled for July 24 until August 17, 2010.
"Southwest Maluku (MBD) district is scheduled to be the location for the peak event of Sail Banda 2010 with undersea ceremony on August 17, 2010 to observe independence day, and therefore the local government is currently expanding the airport`s runway," Renjaan said.
The upcoming international marine event "Sail Banda 2010" in Maluku, scheduled from July to August this year, has gained support from various parties.
Support to make the event a success came among others from Maluku-born people in the Netherlands, Bank Indonesia, as well as air and sea transportation agencies.
In the Netherlands, Maluku-born people are ready to support the Sail Banda 2010 by intensively promoting it in European countries, a Maluku tourism official said.
"At least 350 Moluccans in the Netherlands have expressed their readiness to intensively promote the coming event in Holland and other European countries," head of Maluku`s Culture and Tourism Office, Florence Sahusilawane, has said in Ambon.
Florence said the expatriate Maluku people had expressed their readiness to her when she attended the Dutch tourism event, "Vakantiebeurs" in Utrecht, the Netherlands, last January 12-17, 2010.
"The most important thing in their support to Sail Banda 2010 is that they will also come to Maluku along with their relatives, Dutch friends, and other colleagues from Europe for the event scheduled for July to August 2010," she said.
Florence added that she highly appreciated the seriousness of Moluccans in the Netherlands to help make Sail Banda 2010 a success because it would be a strategic event to assure the international community that peace and calm have returned to Maluku after the province was engulfed by a communal conflict from 1999 to 2002.
"We actually want the Netherlands to be the gateway for netting West European tourists who increasingly visit Maluku every year," Florence said.
Besides Maluku-born community in the Netherlands, Bank Indonesia (the central bank) of Ambon branch is to open money changer counters and ATM booths in Banda to support the international marine event.
"Bank Indonesia and a number of banks such as Bank BRI, Bank Central Asia (BCA), and Bank BNI will also provide services for financial transactions in Banda to support the event," Ambon branch Bank Indonesia spokesman Totok Hermianto said in the eastern Indonesian city of Ambon on Monday.
Totok admitted that he had discussed the event with the leaders of the banks operating in Ambon and they agreed to open banking service counters in Banda.
In addition, Transportation Department`s Air Transportation director general Herry Bakti has said his office was ready to support Sail Banda 2010, because according to him,inter-department coordination was necessary to support the success of the international event.
"In principle, the Transportation Directorate General is ready to support the event," he has said in Bandaneira, Banda, Maluku.
The most important thing is to prepare reliable telephone and internet infrastructure. This can facilitate communication and telecommunication access so that people would not all gather in Ambon if they want to promote Banda," he said.
Sail Banda, he said, needs to be supported by a maritime armada with the capacity and speed that can sail across 159 miles from Ambon to Bandaneira in at least three to four hours.
The national shipping company PT Pelni is also ready to help make the Sail Banda 2010 event a success by putting more ships into service on its route to the Banda Islands in Central Maluku, a spokesman said.
Bachtiar, head of PT Pelni`s Ambon branch office, said in Ambon that the national shipping company felt it bore the moral responsibility to support the international maritime event in Banda.
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