Indonesia lacks expertise and technology for its airline industry

Critics of Indonesia's booming airline industry say the country lacks adequate technology, systems infrastructure and manpower to deal with all the airlines and that the industry has grown too far, too fast. From TIME.com:

Every year, more than 30 million passengers fly with small Indonesian carriers like Adam Air, which launched in 2003. Many have spotty safety records. A Boeing MD-82 operated by Lion Air crashed in Solo in 2004, killing 25 of the 141 people on board, and a Mandala Airlines Boeing 737 crashed in Medan, Indonesia's third-largest city, in September 2005, killing all 102 on board and 47 residents on the ground. In 2006 there were at least 15 aircraft accidents in Indonesia, resulting in 14 fatalities. One foreign resident tells of an Adam Air flight last year from Jakarta to Lombok which left with his luggage but not him. "That's how terrorists blow up planes," he notes, asking not to be identified. "But [the airline] didn't even seem to care."

And here are more reasons why you should be wary when you fly in Indonesia. From Reuters:

"Many flights ignore warnings from the meteorology agency. We have been ignoring this thing and keep flying just to make profits," said Joseph Umar Hadi from the parliament's transport commission, adding that plane checks were prone to doctoring.

"There are also some airplanes in Indonesia that use a small amount of fuel to cut costs. This is dangerous," he said.

Indonesian aviation workers are poorly trained, experts say.

"What we have here is an explosion of plane numbers and this expansion lacks smart people. High technology is useless without competence," said aviation investigator Mardjono Siswosuwarno.

Previously: Why I won't be flying budget airlines