Indonesia's aviation industry third largest in Asia Pacific

Indonesia’s aviation industry has grown significantly and is even considered one of the world’s top three today after India and China in the Asia Pacific region said the President of the Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), Roberto Kobeh Gonzales, on a recent visit to Jakarta.
With this growth, safety factors must be of top priority and needs to be further improved, stated Gonzales when he reviewed Garuda’s Training Center facility in Tangerang, on July 20, 2011. He also added that today, the world’s aviation growth is centered in the Asia Pacific region since the region is a large population center, however, growth needs to be accompanied by continued improvements in safety standards.
According to Indonesia’s Ministry of Transportation, in 2010 Indonesian airlines carried 58 million passengers, increasing over 20% over the previous year at 48 million passengers. This growth also came as a result of the increasing number in airline fleets. Nonetheless, growth needs to be supported by additions to human resources and quality improvements. “We need more qualified human resources, and that is why each airline needs to have its own proper training center,” reminded the ICAO President.
The quality of human resources determines safety levels, thus, they need to be properly trained to obtain the required quality, he elaborated.
Roberto Gonzales commented that when he came to Jakarta for the first time in 2007, Indonesia’s compliance to ICAO safety standards stood at 40%. Today, this has significantly risen to 80.4%.