JAKARTA, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Indonesia officially opened on Monday the operation of a new international airport serving destination city of Yogyakarta, marked with the landing of a commercial flight from Jakarta.
The commercial flight, Citilink QG0132 boarded by 96 passengers, landed in the new airport from Jakarta at noon, was welcomed with "water salute" procession at the tarmac of the airport located in Yogyakarta's Kulonprogo regency.
"Landing of the commercial flight today has officially commenced the operation of Yogyakarta International Airport (YIA)," Angkasa Pura I Marketing and Services Director Devie Suradji said in YIA premises that sits 42 km away from downtown Yogyakarta.
The new airport would subsequently replace the cramped old one located in downtown.
The senior official of state-run airport administrator firm said that in the initial operation YIA is capable to accommodate 5,000 passengers per day.
Construction of the airport terminal has been settled 50 percent at the moment, she said, adding that terminals in YIA would be capable to accommodate 14 million passengers after its 21,000 square meter projects is completed.
The airport has entirely settled its runway construction with a length of 3,250 meters and a width of 75 meters, capable to accommodate wide-bodied planes such as Airbus A 380, Boeing 777 and Boeing 787, she said.
With advanced construction technology, tarmac in YIA has Pavement Classification Number (PCN) of 107, which is higher than the tarmac quality in Jakarta international airport of CGK, enabling YIA to accommodate big planes of those types, she said.
Government has prepared integrated accesses from the airport to toll roads serving most of big cities in Central and East Java provinces as part of the airport's comprehensive connectivity function in the future.
