ATR has identified 209 new domestic air routes across Indonesia that would be economically viable if operated with regional turboprop aircraft. According to the OEM, these routes represent 16 million passengers per year, and existing airport infrastructure is already in place to support them.
The analysis highlights a major opportunity: 70 of Indonesia’s 180 paved‑runway airports currently have no scheduled passenger service, leaving large parts of the archipelago underserved.
Using its MobilityMonitor platform, ATR examined the travel behaviour of 35 million Indonesian residents, who collectively made 780 million inter‑city journeys in a year. Roughly 90% of these trips were between 100 and 800 kilometres, a distance range ideally suited to turboprops.
By overlaying these travel patterns with Indonesia’s airport network, ATR identified the 209 potential routes. 88% of them—representing 14 million passengers annually—are intra‑island, and 90% are located outside Java, particularly in Sumatra, Sulawesi, Kalimantan, Papua and Maluku.
The document emphasises that ground mobility outside Java is significantly slower, with average travel speeds of 26–37 km/h compared to 65 km/h on Java. Typical travel distances on larger islands often exceed 350 km, reaching nearly 480 km in parts of Papua.
ATR identifies Sumatra and Sulawesi as the strongest potential markets. One example is Bengkulu–Pekanbaru, where a road journey of more than 18 hours could be replaced by a one‑hour flight, with demand sufficient for two daily services.
ATR’s senior vice-president, commercial, Alexis Vidal, notes that the data reveals “a large untapped market” and that ATR aircraft can “bridge the gap” in mobility across the archipelago, supporting economic growth, access to essential services, and new opportunities for communities.
