The government-operated airline, Garuda Indonesian Airways, concentrated on international jet service about 80 percent of Garuda's revenue was generated by international flights in the early 1990s. In 1988 Garuda's fleet totaled seventy-three aircraft. Domestic service was provided by several smaller firÍÍÍÍms, including Merpati Nusantara Airlines, a subsidiary of Garuda, and Sempati Air Services, the first private firm that was permitted to provide international jet service in the early 1990s. A total fleet of 102 propeller-driven aircraft offered scheduled domestic services in FY 1988, although about 600 additional aircraft were in commercial nonscheduled operation.

The major Sukarno-Hatta International Airport in Cengkareng Subdistrict, West Jakarta (Jakarta Barat), opened in 1985. Other major airports were being expanded in the early 1990s, including airports located in Denpasar, Medan, and Surabaya and on Batam Island. An agreement reached between Indonesia and Singapore in 1992 for the first time permitted direct flights to and from Singapore from other major Indonesian cities, including Surabaya and Denpasar. In total, in the early 1990s, Indonesia had 470 airports, 436 of which were categorized as usable and 111 of which had permanent-surface runways. Only six of the airports could handle Boeing-747-type aircraft.

Data as of November 1992