TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Soekarno-Hatta International Airport Office said that the overcrowding of passengers in Terminal 2 on Thursday last week, May 14, was because there were many flights taking off at the same morning slot.

"At that time there were numerous flights in the same takeoff slot," the office's head, Hatta Anas Ma'ruf, said in a press conference streamed live via the BNPB's YouTube account, Thursday, May 21.

According to Anas, that the number of passengers on that day was the same as other days since flight restriction was applied, which is only around 1,500 people. However, as most of them were flying at the same time slot, the airport was crowded.

After the incident, the airport manager conducted engineering. "Since that day, we have made plenty of adjustments, improvements. After that there has been no overcrowding," he said.

Photos circulated online depicting the crowds and passengers queuing at Soekarno-Hatta's Terminal 2. The photos showed people disregarding physical distancing rules.

The airport's senior manager for branch communications & legal affairs, Febri Toga, on the morning of that day—between 06:00 and 08:00 Jakarta time, there were 13 flights scheduled to take off. Eleven of those flights were by Lion Air Group and two others were by Citilink Indonesia.

Febri said that AP II had tried to organize the queue, but there were too many people, especially at Gate 4.

Friski Riana