Jakarta. Seventh-grader Salma Damayanti had never spent the night away from home, but last week she experienced what it was like to live with dozens of other children and devote herself to prayer and ritual. 

For two nights, Salma, from state junior high school (SMP) No. 13 in Tangerang, slept on a thin mattress inside a classroom that had been turned into a temporary dormitory. 

Along with about 100 other seventh- and eighth-graders from SMP 13, Salma was enrolled in a program called Pesantren Kilat, where students experienced what it was like to study at an Islamic boarding school for a few days. 

Schools across the country, as well as universities and Islamic organizations, hold the program each year during Ramadan. 

At SMP 13’s Pesantren Kilat, the days began at 2 a.m. with the tahajjud, or nightly prayers, followed by a communal pre-dawn meal before the fast. 

Besides the five compulsory prayers every day, the students were also required to remain in the mosque for other prayers categorized as sunnah — not obligatory, but recommended. 

“We also learned more about Islam during the days, through lessons given by the teachers and clerics,” Salma said. 

Students were required to bring their own mattresses, Muslim-style clothes, towels and plates and cutlery for meals. 

Ahmad Fauzi, the religious studies teacher at SMP 13, said the aim of the Pesantren Kilat was to instruct the students how to live in faith and moderation. 

“For three days, they learn how to live without the luxuries they usually enjoy at home,” Ahmad said, adding that in this context, luxury could extend to include things as mundane as home-cooked meals or watching television with the rest of the family. 

However, the purpose of the exercise can easily be set back by children’s desire to outdo each other in bringing the best or trendiest items to the Pesantren Kilat. 

Henny Bharata, whose daughter, Khesia, attended a Pesantren Kilat while in the fourth grade at Al-Azhar Islamic School in South Jakarta, said she had experienced some unintended problems with the program. 

Henny said Khesia, who is now in junior high school at Al-Azhar, had demanded her mother buy her “the trendiest bedsheet, plate, glass, spoon and even new clothes” when she took part in the four-day event at the prestigious private school. 

“Her friends had all talked about what sort of stuff they were going to bring,” Henny said. “And of course Khesia didn’t want to miss out.” Henny ended up buying Disney-themed crockery for the Pesantren Kilat. 

For teachers, meanwhile, the event provides a great opportunity to bond with their students, Ahmad said. “We can learn more about each child’s character,” he said. 

Ahmad said that even though the short course might not make a lasting impression on most of the students, at least it would teach them more about Islam. 

“We give lessons and talks about Islam that they don’t get in regular classes,” he said. Salma, however, was more skeptical, saying the brief lessons were unlikely to turn her into a more devout follower of Islam. 

“I think when you have the right set of friends and family, that affects your religious behavior more,” she said.

source:  http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/education/short-courses-help-young-muslims-get-taste-of-islamic-boarding-schools/394913

Jakarta. Millions of Indonesians crammed into trains, ferries and in greater numbers than ever, motorcycles, as they poured out of major cities to return to their villages to celebrate the end of the Islamic holy month with families. 

The annual mass exodus, which always leaves the country’s overburdened and poorly maintained transportation systems bursting at the seams, resulted in massive traffic jams and the ever-growing threat of road accidents. 

Flights were overbooked and anxious relatives weighed down with boxes of gifts formed long lines at bus stations for journeys that can take days. 

“It’s going to be exhausting,” said Sri Maryati, a 21-year-old waitress, as she waited Wednesday with five friends to go to East Java province. “We’re going to be hot, cramped, uncomfortable. But still, I can’t wait. I just want to get home.”

Indonesia, with a population of nearly 240 million, has more Muslims than any other country in the world. 

Around 30 million travelers were expected to crisscross the vast archipelago that spans 17,000 islands for Idul Fitri, which marks the end of the Islamic holy month, Ramadan. 
 
Many are construction workers, field laborers and others who earn less than $200 a month, but eagerly spend their savings on the trip. 

Half are from major cities, like Jakarta, which turn into virtual ghost towns. Without the help of maids, drivers and other members of their domestic staff, many of the capital’s well-to-do opt to spend the week in hotels. 

The exodus, or “mudik,” peaked on Wednesday.
 
In an effort to reduce road accidents, which kill hundreds every year, the government has urged travelers to avoid making the long, exhausting journey by motorcycle. 

But with so many people struggling financially, the motorcycle has turned into the vehicle of choice for nearly 7 million people this year, Transportation Ministry spokesman Bambang Ervan said. 

“What else can I do?” asked Maman Abdurrachman, 35, as he and his wife and 5-year-old son prepared to go to Cirebon. Plastic bags stuffed with food and presents hung from his bike, and a wooden board extended from the seat to fit extra baggage. 

“This is the cheap way to go,” the factory worker said. “And it’s efficient ... we can avoid some of the traffic this way.”

source:  http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/indonesian-cities-empty-for-end-of-muslim-holy-month/395409

The rupiah posted its biggest gain in a week on Wednesday after foreigners pumped more funds into Indonesian stocks on Tuesday, seeking to profit from accelerating growth in Southeast Asia’s largest economy. 

Overseas investors bought $166 million more Indonesian shares than they sold on Monday and Tuesday, having been net sellers of the securities in each of the last two weeks, and that helped drive the Jakarta Composite Index to a record high. 

The rupiah pared its advance on speculation the central bank intervened to curb volatility. 

Bank Indonesia is consistently “watching the market” to keep the currency at a comfortable level, said Muhammad Fauzi Halim, a foreign-exchange trader at Bank Resona Perdania in Jakarta. “Sentiment is positive for the rupiah” as stocks have been rallying. 

The rupiah gained 0.3 percent to 8,993 per dollar as of 6 p.m. in Jakarta, the biggest gain since Sept. 1, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. 

The currency has strengthened 4.4 percent this year, buoyed by foreigners’ net purchases of $1.8 billion of the nation’s equities. 

The government’s benchmark 10-year bonds declined for a fourth straight day. 

The yield on the 11 percent security due in November 2020 rose one basis point to 8.15 percent, according to prices provided by the Inter-Dealer Market Association. 

source:  http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/business/rupiah-posts-biggest-jump-in-a-week/395291

Jakarta. The country’s toll roads were lined with vehicles, and seaports and airports were mobbed by crowds on Wednesday, as Indonesians struggled to get home to celebrate Idul Fitri, which begins on Friday. 

Starting in the early morning hours, popular routes like the Jakarta-Cikampek toll road were already backed up with cars and motorbikes, according to the Ministry of Transportation’s National Integrated Transportation Center. 

“The Cikampek toll road was the worst, with thousands of cars backing up and jamming up other toll roads,” said Elly Sinaga, a staff member at the center. A video monitor at one gate showed bumper-to-bumper traffic stretching for four kilometers, she said. 

Several exits on the toll road had to be closed temporarily and people were diverted to alternative routes, she added. 

“For example, we closed an exit gate in Cikopo, Purwakarta, so cars heading to Central and East Java should exit at the Sadang gate,” Elly said. 

The ministry’s director general of land transportation, Suroyo Alimoeso, called on motorists to drive with care and to be responsible on the roads, especially considering recent extreme weather patterns. 

“The weather has been unpredictable,” he said. “It has been raining along the northern coastline, so the roads are likely to be more slippery.” 

Heavy rains forced Adisucipto International Airport in Yogyakarta to shut down temporarily on Wednesday, and several flights were also delayed at Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta International Airport. 

Police announced that as of Wednesday, 166 people across the country had died in transportation accidents during mudik , the annual pilgrimage home for Idul Fitri, which marks the end of Islamic fasting month of Ramadan. 

A spokesman for the Jakarta Police, Sr. Comr. Boy Rafli Amar, recommended that passengers not ride in the backs of pickup trucks during mudik. 

“It’s for the passengers’ own safety. What if they fall off the back of the truck? People stand in the back of the trucks; it’s dangerous,” he said. 

Herry Bhakti Singayuda, director general of civil aviation at the Ministry of Transportation, said Garuda Indonesia, Merpati Nusantara Airlines and Sriwijaya Air had requested a total of 89 extra flights to Bali during the holiday period. 

But not everyone who is traveling this holiday plans to stay in Indonesia. 

According to I Gde Galih, a ticketing officer at Smailing Tour and Travel, most people who booked flights through the agency for the mudik period are heading to Singapore and Hong Kong. Galih said that after those destinations, the next most popular destination was Japan. 

“Flights to [Singapore and Hong Kong] have been fully booked since Monday,” he said. 

The Ministry of Transportation expects some 15 million Indonesian will travel during Idul Fitri this year.

source:  http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/traffic-and-accidents-on-the-rise-as-idul-fitri-approaches/395350

Jakarta. While Lombok is surrounded by the shimmering cobalt-blue water usually seen on postcards, getting a glass of the stuff that is safe to drink isn’t easy for many of the island’s residents. 

“We have to buy water. We need about 50 liters a day, and that means Rp 6,000 [65 cents] leaves our pockets, or about what we pay for a kilogram of rice,” Inaq Sahati said. 

And that is bad news for the 45-year-old fisherman, who is already struggling to eke out a living in the drought-hit village of Bilelando in Central Lombok. 

Inaq’s and the other 117 families in the village share the same problem: clean water is extremely scarce, and has been for more than 30 years. 

When money is short, which is often, the residents of Bilelando go without by substituting clean water for brackish irrigation water for bathing. 

It is either that or send one of the women or children to Bebao, a neighboring village some five kilometers away, on a multihour mission to fetch a single pail of water. 

Despite the ever-present threat of disease and the losses in productivity, residents say that their pleas to the local administration for a reservoir or a water tank have been ignored for decades. 

It is the same story in Nieleando, a small coastal village about 50 kilometers from the provincial capital, Mataram, which has seen dry wells for years. 

Every so often, the local government does send out a few water trucks, but that effort leads to the type of melees usually found in disaster-hit areas. 

Conflicts are quick to erupt between villagers and the workers from the provincial disaster mitigation task force who are charged with distributing the water. 

“We are used to fighting over water. It is far more acceptable if rice is stolen from us than water,” said one resident as she jostled with other villagers to stay at the front of the line. 

Abdullah, who is the head of the village’s Kelongkong hamlet, said that despite government promises to send the trucks twice a week, only two deliveries were made to the village this year. 

According to data from the district’s social welfare office, water shortages are at the top of a long list of mounting social woes facing Central Lombok. 

But nowhere is it more pronounced than the subdistricts of Jonggat, Janapria, Praya Timur, Praya Barat, Praya Barat Daya and Pujut. All six subdistricts have been declared drought areas by provincial authorities. 

“Besides the absence of rain for the past six months, because of the geographical conditions and the way the settlements are spread out on the coast, it makes accessibility difficult, further aggravating the water crisis,” said Muhammad Rusli, who heads the district’s social welfare office. 

Rusli said his office had deployed four trucks to two hamlets on Wednesday, but doubted whether it would do much good. 

“If this goes on, disorder may creep in. A reservoir should be built,” he said.

source:  http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/indonesia/water-everywhere-but-not-a-drop-to-drink/395323

Jakarta. The Transportation Ministry opened a high-tech center on Friday to monitor the flow of traffic during Idul Fitri, when millions of people will be on the go to reach their hometowns. 

The National Integrated Transportation Center has more than 20 big screens showing footage from hundreds of cameras scattered across the nation and is expected to help officials spot traffic jams. 

According to Transportation Minister Freddy Numberi, there are 78 areas that are particularly prone to traffic jams in the archipelago. “These are mostly due to pasar tumpah [impromptu markets] and unfinished road construction,” he said. 

Meanwhile, Tunjung Inderawan, director general of railway transportation, said the nation’s 4,500 railways were also being monitored. He added that special attention was being paid to unguarded crossings. 

He said the ministry would coordinate with regional administrations in identifying these dangerous crossings. 

“We admit that it’s difficult to monitor so many unwatched crossings, so we need help from residents, as well as the drivers,” Tunjung said. “Whatever the circumstances are, please make way for passing trains.” 

Around 15.5 million people are expected to go home for the holidays, one third of whom will travel by land. 

Eye on the Sky 

Measures are also being taken to prevent radar glitches or blackouts from disrupting air travel. 

“We expect no disturbances at the airports,” said Herry Bhakti Singayuda, director general of civil aviation at the Ministry of Transportation. 

Herry said the ministry and state airport operator Angkasa Pura II had been coordinating with state electricity utility Perusahaan Listrik Negara prior to the holiday season. 

“PLN agreed to treat airports like the [Presidential] Palace, where electricity is monitored 24/7,” he said. 

Soekarno-Hatta International Airport has recently experienced power problems. On Aug. 6, a 1.7-second power outage at the airport delayed 62 flights. The airport, Indonesia’s largest, also suffered from a similar blackout in December 2009. 

On Monday, its radar system went dead for 30 minutes, forcing air-traffic controllers to manually guide planes for takeoff and landing, affecting at least 20 domestic flights. 

Herry said that he had instructed airport authorities to inspect and monitor the radar system more frequently.

“Usually the system is refreshed once every month,” Herry said. “Now it’s once every two weeks.” 

The ministry predicted some 1.9 million people would travel by air during the holiday, an increase from last year’s 1.7 million. 

Security Check 

To ensure safety, thousands of police officers will also be deployed nationwide during the holiday period to keep the peace. 

“Priority areas will be Lampung, Banten, Jakarta, West Java, Central Java, Yogyakarta, East Java and Bali,” Comr. Gen. Nanan Soekarna, the National Police’s chief of general monitoring, said on Wednesday. 

“The Jakarta Police have to be more alert for conventional crimes such as gold store and bank robberies, which traditionally become more common as Lebaran approaches. The National Police are required to solve those cases,” he said. 

Jakarta Police Chief Insp. Gen. Timur Pradopo said around-the-clock security would be implemented at the main departure points in Jakarta, such as the Senen and Gambir train and bus stations, the Pulogadung and Kampung Rambutan bus terminals, Soekarno-Hatta Airport and Tanjung Priok sea port. 

“Tourist attractions such as Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, Ancol, Ragunan Zoo and Cibubur Flower Park will also be secured 24-hours,” he said. 

The Jakarta Police are deploying 7,239 officers for security operations from Friday to Sept.19. 

Aside from departure points and tourist attractions, officers will also be deployed at shopping centers, houses of worship and other public places.

source:  http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/traffic-center-to-be-govts-eyes-and-ears-for-idul-fitri/394514

Jakarta. The closure of Plaza Semanggi’s vehicle entrance along Jalan Gatot Subroto was meant to ease traffic congestion, but it ironically resulted in a massive traffic jam. 

Hundreds of vehicles coming from Slipi in West Jakarta at around 10 a.m. on Friday moved at a slow crawl toward Semanggi. 

Jakarta Police Traffic chief Sr. Comr. Condro Kirono said vehicles trying to enter Semanggi from the main road got stuck, while others were forced to take alternative routes. 

He said many motorists may not have been aware that the Semanggi entrance was blocked. 

“Those who did not know and wanted to enter [Plaza Semanggi from Jalan Gatot Subroto] were stuck,” Condro told the Jakarta Globe on Friday. 

“Vehicles from Slipi heading toward Cawang [in East Jakarta] had to [drive past]. The old way is no longer acceptable,” he said. 

However, Condro said traffic jams like this would not happen again once the public got used to the new traffic scheme. 

“We are still trying to perfect the system in the area. Please do not worry about this. This traffic is temporary, I assure you,” he said. “I am confident that in the near future traffic in the Semanggi cloverleaf and [overpass] will diminish.” 

In previous trial runs, the Semanggi 1 toll entrance on Jalan Gatot Subroto was closed from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. — the peak of the rush hour. Udar Pristono, head of the Jakarta Transportation Office, said the scheme resulted in “reduced vehicle build-up.” 

The transportation office and Jakarta Police’s traffic directorate suggested the permanent closure of three gates along Jalan Gatot Subroto — the Semanggi 1 entrance heading east, the Semanggi 2 exit from the Bekasi area and the Tebet 2 entrance — because these fed congestion in the roads around Semanggi. 

Jakarta Deputy Governor Prijanto said the city administration expected state-owned toll operator Jasa Marga to agree to the scheme, because it would help reduce traffic around toll exits and entrances. 

Officials also asked the company to consider adding toll booths and expanding the use of electronic payment schemes. 

Jasa Marga president director Frans Sunito said the company would comply if the Public Works Ministry ordered it to do so. 

He said shutting down toll gates would not affect the company’s income. 

“People who use the toll road will keep using it, even though their usual entrance may be closed,” Frans said. 

The plan is one of a few that the Jakarta administration is considering to ease the capital’s horrendous traffic problems. 

Other proposals include limiting the use of motorcycles in congested areas and blocking some U-turn slots that create bottlenecks. 

The closure of the Semanggi vehicle entrance on Friday came a day after city officials met to discuss ways to solve the traffic crisis, which is costing the capital an estimated Rp 12.8 trillion ($1.42 billion) a year. 

The meeting was chaired by Vice President Boediono and was attended by ministers, governors, senior officials and Jakarta’s traffic police. 

They came up with 17 ways to improve traffic flow in Jakarta, such as cracking down on illegal buses, clearing TransJakarta bus lanes, reviewing parking bylaws, providing access to cheaper fuel for select public transportation, offering incentives to phase out minivans in favor of large buses and pushing through with the Mass Rapid Transit project. Zaky Pawas

source:  http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/semanggi-exit-closure-to-ease-jakarta-gridlock-leads-to-massive-jam/394522

Jakarta. Indonesia appears to have stepped up the pressure on BlackBerry maker Research in Motion, as a minister says a team from the country’s anticorruption agency paid a visit to the company’s headquarters in Waterloo, Canada. 

Communication and Information Technology Minister Tifatul Sembiring said he was informed about the trip by Chandra M Hamzah, a deputy commissioner of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), in a meeting with ministry officials this week on cybercrime and RIM. 

Law enforcement officials, he said, could be interested in the heavily encrypted BlackBerry communications system. “People say that if [communications on] BlackBerry Messengers were deciphered, it would create a huge buzz because so much secret information is exchanged there,” Tifatul said late on Thursday. 

The minister said an Indian intelligence report said the terrorists involved in the Mumbai attacks communicated with one another by using BlackBerry services, hampering Indian authorities in detecting the plot. 

RIM is embroiled in parallel disputes with India, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates over concerns the smartphone’s powerful encryption technology could be used as a cover for terrorism or criminal activity. 

The ministry has been pressuring RIM to set up a database center and server in Indonesia in compliance with the 2008 Information and Electronic Transaction Law (ITE). Tifatul said the center would allow authorities to conduct lawful interceptions of e-mail and other messages, and the leasing of bandwidth for the servers would contribute revenue. 

Indonesia’s move comes as the UN telecommunications chief said RIM should give global law-enforcement agencies access to its customer data. Hamadoun Toure, secretary general of the International Telecommunication Union, said authorities fighting terrorism had a right to demand access to users’ information from RIM. 

That demand has been countered by privacy advocates who say the crackdown has been fueled by frustration within authoritarian governments over their inability to eavesdrop on their citizens. IT analysts, however, told the Jakarta Globe that the Indonesian government’s demands were reasonable. 

Yono Reksoprodjo, an IT security analyst, said it was “important that a communication server is under direct surveillance of the authorities.” 

I Made Wiryana, an IT expert from Gunadarma University, backed Yono’s assessment, adding that there also needs to be tighter controls over the monitoring of state information. 

“State secrets passed among government officials might be leaked to a third party because the government does not have control over information management of the device,” he said. 

He also said it would be easy for foreign telecoms to set up data servers locally, but legitimate concerns over infrastructure need to be addressed

source:  http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/indonesia-turns-up-heat-over-encrypted-blackberry-phones/394527

This year’s Ramadan has been a surprisingly trouble-free affair, given the increasingly high profile of religious paramilitary urban guerrilla types in the country. I’ve been expecting to have my Prohibition era teacup dashed from my lips as I enjoy a little holy water in some of the city’s less salubrious establishments, but thankfully nothing has transpired. 

In fact, most of Jakarta’s brutish behavior is currently being channeled into nationalism as opposed to religious radicalism. Protesters have got all excremental on the Malaysian Embassy, seemingly oblivious to the fact that if you start throwing your own stools around like some of Ragunan Zoo’s more simian charges, then the joke’s kind of on you. Moreover, presumably it was Indonesians, rather than Malaysians, who had to clean up the whole mess. 

Religion-wise, however, all seems to be calm in the capital. There has been relatively little 3 a.m. drum pounding or relentless fireworks keeping me awake all night. A couple of times, however, I found myself being woken up, having forgotten to insert my anti-sectarian foam earplugs. 

The call to sahur (i.e. wake up and do some cooking) has been going off at a ludicrously early 2:30 a.m. around my neck of the woods this year. This occasionally gives me a rude awakening and finds me stumbling to the toilet through the stygian gloom of my bedroom in order to purge my bladder of Ramadan “tea” before all falls silent for another 90 minutes or so.

As a baby-eating atheist, religious observance and the commitment that the faithful show toward religious rituals never ceases to amaze me. In fact, I almost wish I could feel some of that spirituality myself, although as a true trencherman, I am not so keen on the actual fasting side of things. It’s a scientific fact, though, that the religiously committed suffer significantly lower levels of stress and depression than Darwinian infidels such as myself, who know that the existential void lurks malevolently out there beyond human culture, like a freshly soiled embassy compound. 

I’ve been reading some fascinatingly contentious academic theories about religion of late, and about the mental processes and irrational behaviors that may have produced them. 

We still live in an ostensibly irrational world, that’s for sure. A recent opinion poll revealed that 25 percent of Americans believe in ghosts, that 35 percent of them believe in mental telepathy and that more than 50 percent believe that Satan influences events on earth. One can only begin to speculate what the figures would be like in Indonesia. We live in a highly irrational world, but where does it all come from? 

A psychologist in the 1940s, Devereux, posited religion as organized schizophrenia and theorized that shamans and prophets were neurotic and schizotypal. In other words, conditions that the secular world classifies as mental illness may have played a crucial role in the propagation of religions. 

The meta-magical thinking involved in coming up with stories about talking snakes, flying horses and virgin births is commensurate with the kind of disconnection from reality seen in schizotypal patients. It’s important, however, that this shamanic-schizotypal behavior not be too extreme for it to work as a religious catalyst. 

If you’re hearing voices all the time then things won’t work, but if you hear voices in the right context, at the right moments, then you can be perceived as a holy man. If you babble and speak in tongues continually then you’ll be ostracized, but babble during your tribe’s holiest ceremony and you’ve been touched by God. In other words, exhibit the schizotypal behavior in the right context and just maybe, for the next few millennia, people won’t have to go to work on your birthday. 

Similarly, it’s been theorized that many religious rituals may have origins in another kind of mental disturbance, mainly OCD, or obsessive compulsive disorder. Most of the world’s major religious rituals involve such OCD type behavior as repeated cleansing, entering and leaving buildings in specific ways and obsessive numerology. It is therefore not difficult to imagine OCD sufferers millennia ago saying to their tribes: “This is how I’ve been honoring the almighty all these years, you should join me.” 

It’s all fascinating stuff, and if you wish to engage in a debate, all letter bombs and envelopes full of anthrax should be mailed to me with a return address on the back.


Simon Pitchforth is the editor of Jakarta Java Kini magazine.

source:  http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/lifeandtimes/metro-madness-getting-rational-during-ramadan/394414

The departure and arrival gates may have a quirky architectural charm, but Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta International Airport has seen better days. Besides an outdated air-traffic control radar system, which failed last month, and a recent power outage that disrupted many national and international flights, the airport is also increasingly rundown, crowded and frustrating to negotiate. 

For those passengers with the right amount of cash to spare, however, there is now an alternative: a haven of tranquility that promises to soothe away the pain of passport control and make those snaking queues vanish. 

It comes in the shape of the exotically named d’Consulate Lounge, where for a fee of Rp 325,000 ($35) anyone can enjoy a relatively pain-free check-in, perks such as armchair comfort, a massage, buffet and a Wi-Fi connection.

“Just leave your travel documents and baggage with our receptionist,” said Zulu Ginting, the lounge’s manager. “Proceed to the lounge, where you can get a free reflexology massage and enjoy our set-up of buffet food and drinks.”

The lounge is part of the Saphire program, a service that principally offers instant immigration clearance for members, and costs Rp 2.5 million a year. Saphire was developed by the company Angkasa Pura Schiphol, a joint venture of Angkasa Pura II, the state-owned company that manages Soekarno-Hatta Airport, and  the Schiphol Group, which operates Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport. 

The initiative’s eye-openingly ambitious aim is to change Soekarno-Hatta Airport into a world-class “AirportCity” — an efficiently designed international transport hub that exudes the atmosphere of a global city where work and recreation meet.

The lounge, which opened on Aug. 24, is  thus far the only one in the airport’s public area to provide international passengers with luxury facilities and service. Members of the Saphire program may use the lounge and check-in service for free. 

Angkasa Pura Schiphol’s data showed that 10 percent of passengers were frequent fliers and more well-off than the average traveler, said Edyana Paramitasari, the company’s president director. “For them, traveling is both a need and a lifestyle. Hopefully, the facilities in the lounge can meet the needs and expectations of these passengers.”

The 500-square-meter lounge is split into two levels. The departure lounge, on level 2, includes a reception, business center, reflexology massage parlor, a lounge area and a bar. The arrival lounge, on level 1, has a bar, a smoking room, a restroom and shower area, and two meeting rooms. Guests of both lounges can use the meeting rooms for 30 minutes at no extra charge.

Lounge staff members, in collaboration with Gapura Angkasa, one of the airport’s ground-service providers, complete the entire check-in process for departing passengers, including baggage handling, seating arrangement and the airport and exit tax payment. “The whole process only takes 10 minutes to complete,” Zulu said.

Passengers who are arriving in Jakarta can use the arrival part of the lounge after passing through immigration. They pay 
Rp 250,000, while  arriving Saphire members pay Rp 150,000.

The lounge was developed in collaboration with d’Consulate Group, a Middle-East based company that operates restaurants and lounges in numerous countries. “We’ve built it as an integrated service lounge that combines services and facilities of a five-star executive club — VIP treatment at the airport and an exclusive business lounge,” said David Awuy, a representative of the group.

“The airport is more than a quarter of a century old,” said Tri S. Sunoko, president director of Angkasa Pura II. “Many of its facilities are outdated and do not meet the current standards of an airport city.”

The 18-square-kilometer airport has exceeded its original capacity of 18 million passengers per year. Today, it processes 
37 million passengers every year.

The airport, designed by French architect Paul Andreu — who also designed Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris — was built in 1980. It started operating domestic flights in 1984, replacing Kemayoran Airport in Central Jakarta and Halim Perdana Kusuma Airport in East Jakarta.

“It no longer meets the demands of today’s passenger, while it’s an airport that should accommodate all of their pre- and post-flight needs,” Tri said. “With an average growth of 10 percent per year, the number of passengers may reach up to 50 million [per year] by 2015.”

The Saphire lounge may be happy to lighten the wallets of passengers willing to pay for the comfort and convenience on offer, but it was also intended to help ease the over-crowding, its Edyana claimed.  “The idea for the lounge came up when we were thinking about solving the capacity problems that are currently faced by Angkasa Pura II,” she said.

While the arrival lounge currently only functions as a place for guests to refresh themselves and enjoy food and drink, there are already plans to develop its services. 

“In the near future, we’ll meet and greet the passengers on the airplane and escort them directly to the lounge, without going through all the hassles of immigration and baggage handling,” Zulu said, adding that the lounge is currently only open from 5 a.m. to 1 p.m., but is intended soon to be open 24 hours a day.

With the continuing increase in the number of passengers flying in and out of the airport, Angkasa Pura II has also devised plans to improve the airport’s facilities for all passengers.

“In the long term, we plan to renovate and change the layout of the terminals, add more immigration counters and further develop terminal 3,” Tri said. 

“In the short term, we plan to redistribute flight schedules, move the overnight parking to terminal 3 [for domestic flights] and optimize the existing facilities for the passengers,” he added.

“Eventually, we will have to expand the airport, especially as we’re nearing the enactment of the Asean open skies policy in 2015,” Tri said. 

“In the meanwhile the lounge is a good effort to optimize the existing facilities of the airport.”


Saphire d’Consulate Lounge

Soekarno-Hatta International Airport
Terminal 2 D, E
Level 1 (arrival lounge)
Level 2 (departure lounge)

Tel: 021 5591 3529/30

source:  http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/lifeandtimes/ambitious-plan-to-convert-jakartas-airport-into-a-world-class-airportcity-at-a-price/394416