In early 1980, Indonesia launched the Air Bridge Operation in response to a Garuda pilot strike that captured national attention from 29 January to 4 February. During this episode, civilian aviation demonstrated its extraordinary strategic value, not merely as a commercial service, but as an extension of the state’s logistical and mobility capability.

This was not the first time that civilian aviation played such a strategic role. When the government announced the Trikora Operation in 1962 to liberate West Irian from Dutch colonialism, Garuda flight crews were mobilized as auxiliary reserve forces supporting the national air campaign. The establishment of Wing Garuda and Wing Garuda 011 underscored the linkage between civilian aviation and national power.

During the Dwikora confrontation, civilian airports, infrastructure, and aircraft supported military operations, logistical distribution, and nationwide mobility. In the 1975 East Timor operation, civilian aircraft once again served logistical purposes. Likewise, during the 2004 Aceh tsunami, civilian aviation became the backbone of humanitarian evacuation and relief delivery. These episodes reveal a consistent pattern, civilian aviation is inseparable from national resilience.

Yet in the past two decades, the situation has changed fundamentally. Indonesia today retains only a single national flag carrier, and even that company is no longer fully state-owned. Almost all domestic and international air services are operated by private entities driven by market logic rather than national strategy.

When commercial interests diverge from public needs, the state no longer possesses direct tools to act swiftly in its own skies. After more than 40 years since the Air Bridge Operation, Indonesia’s aviation network has shifted from an instrument of the state to an instrument of the market.

Its original mission of public service and logistical support has been supplanted by commercial imperatives. Other airlines operating in the country serve profit mandates without obligations tied to national objectives.

This absence of direct state control over civilian fleets is a structural vulnerability. In times of crisis, political, humanitarian, or systemic disruption, Indonesia would be operationally paralyzed without state-owned aircraft to mobilize logistics, evacuations, or emergency responses. For an archipelagic state spread across more than 17,000 islands, air connectivity is vital. Losing control over aviation is effectively losing the ability to guarantee public safety, territorial integrity, and the promise of equal access across the nation.

Market-oriented pragmatism compounds this fragility. Airlines suspend routes when profit margins collapse, while the state lacks reserve capacity to sustain essential mobility. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the brittleness of an aviation system that relies entirely on market forces.

From a geopolitical and security perspective, civilian aviation is a critical component of national air power. Major powers fully understand this and safeguard their national carriers with robust legal frameworks. The United States maintains the Civil Reserve Air Fleet, enabling rapid mobilization of civilian aircraft for military and humanitarian missions.

China, France, Russia, and the United Kingdom protect their aviation assets as strategic national resources. For an archipelagic state at the crossroads of two oceans and two continents, Indonesia’s strategic need is arguably greater. Without state-controlled fleets, sovereignty in the air becomes hollow; the state may remain sovereign on paper, but operationally constrained when control is ceded entirely to the market.

A further problem lies in fragmented governance. Responsibilities remain scattered across multiple institutions, ministries, state-owned enterprises, AirNav Indonesia, Angkasa Pura airport operators, and others, without a unifying national strategy. Policy remains sectoral, uncoordinated, and often contradictory.

The troubled trajectory of Kertajati International Airport, the collapse of Merpati Nusantara Airlines, and the prolonged difficulties faced by Garuda Indonesia are clear symptoms of systemic dysfunction. Tourism markets, instead of strategic planning, drive airport development. Route openings follow profit potential rather than equitable connectivity.

Indonesia must respond to these compounding risks through a national resilience framework. Revitalizing the national flag carrier under clear state direction is imperative. A permanent pioneer airline should be established, mandated by law to serve remote regions as a non-negotiable national obligation. State-owned charter and cargo fleets must be built through synergy among strategic state enterprises to provide flexible emergency capacity. A National Aerospace Council should be formed to integrate transport policy, defense requirements, and sovereignty into a single strategic command.

The absence of state ownership in the aviation sector is an alarming signal for a maritime-air archipelagic nation. A state without national fleets resembles a ship without propulsion: impressive on maps, but immobile in reality.

In an era defined by speed, mobility, and strategic competition, control of the sky is not merely symbolic, it is foundational to the endurance of statehood. National airspace, under the Constitution, is a strategic natural resource that must be governed for the greatest benefit of the people.

Despite progress, one unsettling fact remains, Indonesia does not yet fully control all of its own sovereign airspace. In critical sectors above the Strait of Malacca, one of the busiest and most strategic air corridors in the world, portions of Indonesian territorial airspace continue to be managed by a foreign civil aviation authority.

This is not simply a matter of air traffic regulation, it is an unresolved question of sovereignty. Until full operational control is regained, Indonesia’s independence in the air remains incomplete.

The warning light on Indonesia’s aviation governance has been blinking for years. It is time to turn it green again, to reclaim the sky as a domain of the nation, not the market. Just as the seas once united our ancestors, the skies must unite future generations, protected by those who guard the archipelagic heavens for a sovereign Indonesia in the twenty-first century and beyond.

The writer, former Indonesian Air Force Chief of Staff, is Chairman of the Indonesian Center for Air Power Studies(PSAPI).