From a red-soil construction site on the edge of Borneo’s forest to a strategic gateway for Indonesia’s new political capital, Nusantara International Airport (often referred to as IKN Airport) has become one of the most closely watched pieces of infrastructure in the Nusantara project. The government originally targeted full operation by December 2024, with limited operations earlier that year, as announced by then president Joko Widodo during the groundbreaking in November 2023. As timelines shift and Nusantara’s broader development faces budget and investment headwinds, the question now is whether this new airport can realistically support regular commercial traffic by 2026.

Image Illustration. Photo by Bambang Irawan on Unsplash

From VVIP Gateway to Commercial Hub

Nusantara Airport was initially conceived as a VVIP facility to serve state guests, presidential movements and high-level government activities linked to the relocation of Indonesia’s capital from Jakarta to East Kalimantan. Early briefings from the Transportation Ministry stressed that the airport would function as a special VVIP airport rather than a commercial hub, with a 3,000‑meter runway capable of handling wide-body aircraft and a 7,350-square-meter terminal on a 347-hectare airside footprint within a 621-hectare overall site. The investment value for the airport has been estimated at around 4.2–4.3 trillion rupiah (roughly US$260–270 million). That figure was highlighted when ground was broken in November 2023, alongside expectations that the facility would be fully operational by December 2024.

But as construction advanced, political calculations shifted. In September 2024, President Joko Widodo publicly ordered the Transportation Minister to convert Nusantara Airport’s status from purely VVIP into a commercial airport, arguing that opening it to regular passengers would better serve communities in East Kalimantan, including for Hajj and Umrah departures. The president cited an initial capacity projection of around 200,000 passengers a year once initial operations stabilize, with a long‑term target of up to seven million passengers annually when fully developed as a commercial facility. That shift in status is central to the conversation about readiness for full commercial operations by 2026.

Construction Progress: Runway Ready, Systems Catching Up

Physically, Nusantara Airport has moved fast by global greenfield standards. By July 2024, the government reported that construction progress had reached about 50 percent, including work on the runway, taxiways and apron, alongside supporting buildings such as the air traffic control (ATC) tower and rescue and firefighting facilities. By early September 2024, Transportation Minister Budi Karya Sumadi said a limited operational phase would commence, following successful runway calibration tests using a King Air Type 200 aircraft and verification flights with the president’s RJ‑85 jet. Subsequent visits in October 2024 confirmed the runway at 2,200 meters in length and 45 meters in width, with further structural thickening under way to prepare for heavier aircraft and more frequent operations. Officials said a trial landing for larger jets was being prepared as part of the certification process to ensure compliance with international safety standards set by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

Behind the high‑profile runway tests lies a set of less visible but equally decisive tasks: integrating navigation aids, commissioning radar and communication systems, certifying firefighting and rescue capacity, and training personnel for round‑the‑clock civil operations rather than occasional state flights. Limited operations in late 2024 largely revolve around state and calibration flights. Scaling up to a commercial schedule by 2026 will require full Aerodrome Certificate issuance by Indonesia’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation, as well as alignment with ICAO’s Annex 14 standards on runway safety areas, obstacle limitation surfaces and emergency planning.

Demand Projections: Who Will Fly to Nusantara?

Forecasting traffic for a brand‑new airport serving a still‑emerging city is inherently uncertain. Officials hope the airport will underpin Nusantara’s long‑term target population of roughly two million by 2045 and support the relocation of core state institutions over the coming decade. The overall capital project, planned at US$32 billion, has been designed to gradually draw civil servants, businesses and residents away from the overcrowded and subsiding capital Jakarta, which is sinking at an average of around 17 centimeters per year in some areas. Environmental pressures, flooding risk and air pollution have long justified the move, Indonesian and international experts say. Yet Nusantara’s on‑the‑ground reality in 2025 is more modest. Reporting by international media indicates that only a fraction of the planned core area has been built and that the resident population is a small fraction of the 1.2 million residents originally targeted for 2030. That mismatch between ambition and present‑day occupancy weighs directly on short‑term demand for commercial air services.

In this context, the airport’s early commercial role is likely to be niche: shuttling civil servants, construction workers, investors and domestic tourists, while relieving pressure on nearby Balikpapan’s Sultan Aji Muhammad Sulaiman Sepinggan International Airport. Within East Kalimantan, authorities are also positioning Nusantara Airport as a potential regional hub for Hajj and Umrah pilgrims, which could add several tens of thousands of passengers per year if routes are secured via major Indonesian carriers and Middle Eastern airlines.

Funding, Politics and the 2026 Timeline

Beyond engineering and demand, the effort to get Nusantara Airport fully commercial by 2026 is increasingly shaped by politics and public finance. Indonesia’s new administration under President Prabowo Subianto has signaled continued, but more cautious, support for Nusantara. Budget allocations for the capital have been trimmed, and the project has been reclassified as a “political capital,” with the bulk of state institutions now scheduled to relocate by 2028 rather than mid‑decade. Reuters has reported that Prabowo’s government plans to allocate about 48.8 trillion rupiah (roughly US$3 billion) toward Nusantara through 2029, building on roughly 75.8 trillion rupiah in state funds already spent between 2022 and 2024. The government continues to court domestic and foreign investors for residential, commercial and infrastructure projects in the new city, though capital commitments have so far fallen short of earlier expectations.

Legal uncertainty has also entered the equation. In November 2025, Indonesia’s Constitutional Court ruled to limit investor land rights in Nusantara to a maximum of 95 years, half the 190 years originally envisioned in regulations governing the new capital’s special economic regime. The court framed the decision as a safeguard for future generations and a corrective to excessively long land grants, but investors see it as a material change in the risk profile of long‑term projects in the new city, including around the airport zone and related logistics developments. While the state is financing the core aerodrome itself, a thriving commercial airport will inevitably depend on private investment in hotels, cargo facilities and transport links.

Connectivity and Airline Interest

On paper, Nusantara Airport will be connected to the city center by a combination of upgraded roads and a planned toll road link to Balikpapan, cutting surface travel time to roughly 50 minutes from two hours today, according to earlier government briefings. Access roads to the airport itself were reported to be more than 50 percent complete by September 2024, with the main access road nearing full completion at nearly 99 percent progress, according to the Transportation Ministry. These connections will be essential in convincing airlines that Nusantara will quickly become a viable origin‑destination market rather than an underused outpost.

So far, Indonesian officials have emphasized domestic connectivity over long‑haul aspirations. In the early years, most routes are expected to link Nusantara with Jakarta, Surabaya, Makassar and possibly regional hubs like Balikpapan and Samarinda, feeding passengers into the national network anchored by Jakarta’s Soekarno–Hatta and Surabaya’s Juanda airports. International flights may follow as population and business activity build out, but few analysts expect Nusantara to compete immediately with established hubs for long‑haul traffic.

Realistic Outlook: Commercial by 2026, but at What Scale?

Given current progress on physical infrastructure, supportive—if tightened—state funding and political commitment to make Nusantara Indonesia’s political capital, a limited commercial operation at Nusantara Airport by 2026 appears plausible. The runway, taxiways and primary terminals are either complete or nearing completion; access roads are substantially built; and test flights have already begun to validate the aerodrome’s safety and performance.

However, scale and sustainability are more open questions. Passenger numbers in the early years are likely to fall well short of the long‑term seven‑million‑passenger ambition referenced by the president. Much will depend on how quickly government agencies actually relocate, how aggressively airlines schedule services, and whether Nusantara can attract the residents and investors needed to keep planes full. Slower‑than‑expected private capital inflows and new legal constraints on land tenure add further uncertainty to growth trajectories for the wider metropolitan region.

For now, Nusantara Airport stands as a symbol of both Indonesia’s determination to reimagine its capital and the complex realities of executing a mega‑project in a tight fiscal and environmental context. By 2026, travelers are likely to see commercial flights landing on its 3,000‑meter strip of concrete—but whether it feels like a bustling hub or a half‑empty outpost will depend on decisions in Jakarta and Nusantara as much as on the airport’s own readiness.