Indonesia to turn highways across countless islands into "aircraft carriers"

Indonesia is moving forward with plans to transform sections of its national toll-road network into emergency runways for fighter jets — effectively creating the equivalent of multiple land-based aircraft carriers across its vast archipelago, representing a structurally transformative shift in its airpower doctrine.

The chief of staff of the Indonesian Air Force, Air Marshal Tonny Harjono, announced this week that the long-term goal is for each of Indonesia’s 38 provinces to have at least one toll road segment capable of serving as an emergency landing strip, as noted by Defence Security Asia.

In a demonstration on February 11, an F-16 Fighting Falcon and an Embraer EMB 314 Super Tucano successfully landed and took off from a toll road in Lampung province, located at the southern tip of Sumatra.

“This success marks an important milestone in strengthening the universal defense system,” Deputy Defense Minister Donny Ermawan Taufanto said.

Indonesia joins several other nations that have adopted similar strategies. Using highways as temporary military airstrips is not a new concept; armed forces in countries including the United States, Finland and Sweden have conducted comparable exercises.

“The use of toll roads as situational alternative runways is expected to strengthen the operational readiness of the Indonesian Air Force in facing various potential threats, without reducing the primary function of toll roads as public transportation infrastructure,” the Indonesian Air Force said in a statement.

While Indonesia has ongoing maritime disputes with China in the South China Sea, officials have indicated that the highway-runway initiative is not aimed at any particular country.

The article cites an analyst evaluating the logic behind this approach.  “An aircraft carrier doesn’t seem that attractive as a cost-effective platform… Having countless toll roads and highways earmarked as emergency military runways across the entire archipelago makes more strategic and operational sense,” before reinforcing survivability considerations with the blunt assessment: “The margin of risk is lower than an aircraft carrier. If you strike the aircraft carrier once, it’s gone.” 

Indonesia is the world’s largest archipelago, comprising more than 6,000 inhabited islands stretching roughly 5,000 kilometers from east to west. Covering such an immense area with a traditional aircraft carrier fleet — which the Indonesian Navy does not possess — would require enormous financial resources to acquire and sustain.

By Nazrin Sadigova