Indonesia’s civil aviation industry is undergoing a defining transformation. As the country seeks to position itself as a regional aviation hub, major airports like Soekarno-Hatta and I Gusti Ngurah Rai are being expanded and digitized to meet future demands. Yet behind the high-traffic terminals and multi-billion-rupiah investments lies a sector often overlooked—one that holds substantial untapped potential: the marginal and peripheral support industries orbiting airport operations.
These include porters, informal transporters, small-scale caterers, sanitation crews, last-mile delivery agents, waste recyclers, and MSME vendors operating in and around the airport environment. Though often underregulated and lacking formal recognition, these actors provide vital services that maintain operational continuity and enhance the human dimension of air travel.
In the effort to modernize Indonesia’s airports, a new development paradigm is urgently needed—one that recognizes and strategically integrates these marginal support industries into the national aviation ecosystem. Doing so is not a concession but a forward-looking investment that aligns with the six foundational pillars of sustainable aviation development: safety, security, capacity and efficiency, facilitation, economic growth, and environmental sustainability.
The Case for Inclusive Aviation Development
Historically, airport modernization has focused on airside expansion, air traffic control, and security systems. However, this “hardware-first” approach often neglects the invisible yet indispensable “people layer” that keeps airports running smoothly. In today’s more connected, inclusive, and sustainability-conscious world, the opportunity lies in reframing these marginal actors not as auxiliary, but as core contributors to aviation resilience and service quality.
From the perspective of economic development, their empowerment supports job creation, poverty reduction, and urban-rural economic linkages. From a facilitation standpoint, they deliver personalized, culturally grounded services that enhance the passenger experience. From an environmental lens, their practices—particularly in waste handling and local sourcing—can anchor low-carbon, circular operations at airports.
Aligning Marginal Support Integration with Aviation’s Core Pillars
- Safety and Security: Regulate by Empowering
Safety and security must remain non-negotiable. However, the solution is not to exclude informal workers, but to formalize their roles through training, certification, and oversight.
Strategic Action: Create modular vocational certification pathways for marginal workers in key domains: baggage handling, sanitation, catering hygiene, basic airside conduct, and customer service.
Operational Step: Establish a digital airport workforce registry, enabling airport operators and regulators to track certification status, deploy personnel effectively, and ensure that only trained, accountable individuals access sensitive zones.
- Capacity and Efficiency: Expand Through Distributed Services
Marginal support actors can relieve bottlenecks and increase efficiency by managing low-risk, landside services. This distributed model reduces reliance on overburdened core staff.
Strategic Action: Enable MSMEs and cooperatives to take on standardized airport services (e.g., porterage, shuttle driving, on-demand delivery) under clearly defined service level agreements.
Operational Step: Implement a tiered licensing system for these services, based on their proximity to airside operations and associated risk profiles. Regular audits and performance ratings would ensure quality control.
- Facilitation: Elevate the Passenger Experience
Global travelers increasingly value authenticity and personalization. Properly trained community-based actors can deliver unique, human-centered services—assistance for the elderly, local culinary products, cultural items—without compromising international standards.
Strategic Action: Curate community micro-retail and service clusters inside terminals and landside commercial zones.
Operational Step: Develop a service excellence recognition scheme with incentives, cross-marketing opportunities, and fast-track commercial licensing for vendors who meet performance benchmarks.
- Economic Development: Build Inclusive Aviation Value Chains
The civil aviation sector should not be the domain of large corporations alone. Opening value chains to local economies democratizes access to opportunity.
Strategic Action: Designate Airport Inclusive Economic Zones (AIEZs) near major airports. These would host certified marginal actors with access to shared infrastructure, training centers, and preferential procurement.
Operational Step: Facilitate public–private–people partnerships (4Ps) involving airport operators, cooperatives, local governments, and development banks. These entities can offer micro-credit, group insurance, and entrepreneurship coaching tailored to the airport context.
- Environmental Sustainability: Support Green Marginal Economies
Marginal actors often operate within informal circular systems—waste sorting, food composting, material reuse. With support, they can become catalysts for airport sustainability.
Strategic Action: Incorporate marginal recyclers and local composters into formal Green Airport Management Plans.
Operational Step: Develop Community Sustainability Hubs near airports with composting units, recycling workshops, and zero-waste training linked to airport CSR initiatives.
Human Capital: The Bedrock of Inclusive Airport Transformation
Building the right ecosystem means preparing the people who will operate in it. Human capital development is both a prerequisite and a multiplier for marginal industry empowerment.
The Human Capital Challenge
Marginal workers face a triple disadvantage: Limited access to formal education or aviation-relevant training; Lack of legal status, protections, and clear career paths; and, Low digital and financial literacy in an increasingly tech-driven sector.
Without intervention, these gaps will deepen exclusion—and limit the performance gains of modernization efforts.
Building Human Capital Readiness: A National and Local Imperative
- National Human Capital Strategy for Inclusive Aviation
The government should launch a dedicated National Strategy for Inclusive Human Capital in Civil Aviation, involving:
- Ministry of Transportation (aviation standards & workforce planning)
- Ministry of Manpower (training, job placement)
- Ministry of Education (SMK and polytechnic curriculum alignment)
- Ministry of Cooperatives & MSMEs (entrepreneurship support)
The strategy must emphasize:
- Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) to formalize existing skills
- Modular vocational certification, not limited to formal employees
- Soft-skills training including ethics, hygiene, hospitality, and basic English
- Digital literacy and financial inclusion
- Operational Human Capital Programs
a. Airport Community Training Centers (ACTCs)
Built near major airports and run collaboratively by local vocational schools and aviation academies, ACTCs would provide:
- Short-cycle, stackable courses tailored to specific airport roles
- Mobile training units for outreach to underserved groups
- Blended learning via smartphones and community kiosks
b. Apprenticeships and On-the-Job Learning
Design structured apprenticeship pathways into certified MSMEs and cooperatives operating at the airport. This provides supervised, real-world exposure and professionalization.
c. Incentive Schemes
Introduce:
- Training stipends to offset income loss
- Performance-linked access to commercial zones or service concessions
- Microgrants for equipment, uniforms, or digital tools upon certification
- Tracking Human Capital Outcomes
Develop a Human Capital Readiness Index for Airport Economies (HCRI-AE) with indicators like:
- % certified marginal workers
- Income gains post-certification
- Inclusion of women and people with disabilities
- Training completion and job placement rates
The index would be updated annually and used to allocate funding and refine programs.
Governance and Technology for Integration
Inclusive development requires institutional imagination and coordination.
Establish Airport Community Integration Councils (ACICs)
Chaired by the airport operator and composed of regulators, cooperatives, civil society, and business actors, ACICs would: Set local integration targets; Resolve stakeholder conflicts; and, Monitor compliance and outcomes.
Deploy Digital Platforms for Integration
A centralized Airport Services Integration App could: List certified workers and vendors; Allow digital scheduling and payments; Provide real-time service ratings; and, Offer training reminders and incentive alerts
This platform would improve transparency and ensure service quality while building digital trust between stakeholders.
Reimagining Indonesia’s Airport Development Model
Empowering marginal support industries must be viewed not as a social add-on, but as a structural innovation. Inclusive development increases system resilience, enhances social license to operate, and creates a more stable, skilled, and motivated workforce. These outcomes are good not only for passengers and communities—but for the long-term competitiveness of Indonesia’s civil aviation industry.
Soekarno-Hatta and other major Indonesian airports are more than concrete and terminals—they are living economic ecosystems. In this light, the future of Indonesia’s aviation economy depends not just on how many flights we operate or how fast our security lines move, but on how fairly we share the value of flight.
Conclusion: Let the Ground Rise with the Sky
To make Indonesian aviation world-class, we must look beyond aircraft and terminals—and see the workers who lift, clean, serve, guide, and power the system. It is time to bring those who have long stood at the margins into the heart of the nation’s aviation future.
Because no plane takes off alone—and no airport thrives without the unseen hands that keep the ground ready.
