"The progress has reached around 40-50 percent," the secretary of the ministry's Directorate General of Air Transportation, Sigit Hani Hadiyanto, remarked during the Indonesia AERO Summit 2024.
Hadiyanto affirmed that his side and the Public Works and Public Housing Ministry were pursuing the target of making the transportation facility operational before the commemoration of the 79th Anniversary of Indonesia's Independence Day.
"We are striving to ensure that the airport is functional by August 1 to prepare for the national ceremony on August 17," he pointed out, adding that the government had yet to plan on preparing the airport for commercial flights.
To this end, Hadiyanto underlined that the VVIP airport would initially focus on accommodating the arrivals of state guests and flights related to governmental activities in Nusantara. He also noted that the VVIP facility, named Nusantara Airport, would not acquire a code commonly given to commercial airports in the near future.
Earlier, on June 16, Transportation Minister Budi Karya Sumadi stated that the government is targeting to use the airport to accommodate the flights of guests who will attend the Independence Day ceremony in Nusantara on August 17.
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"We will use the airport. Mr. President (Joko Widodo) has said that we will invite all ambassadors of friendly countries to fly from Jakarta to the IKN," he stated in Semarang, Central Java.
Sumadi also revealed that the VVIP airport is only some 20 minutes of overland travel away from the government core area of Indonesia's future capital city.
