ROME, 26 August 2024: Pope Francis will fly to Indonesia on the evening of 2 September on a special ITA Airways flight departing Rome Fiumicino Airport and arriving at Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta International Airport to begin a four-day state visit to the world’s largest Muslin nation.
ITA Airways will deploy an Airbus A330neo to transport Pope Francis on his state visit to Indonesia. Equipped with innovative technologies, this Airbus is lighter, more efficient and quieter, facilitating a 20% reduction in fuel consumption and CO2 emissions per passenger compared to aircraft from the previous generation.
Commander Massimiliano Marselli, with 18,000 flight hours of experience, will be the flight supervisor. The entire crew will consist of 13 people, including three pilots and 10 flight attendants, joined by the ITA Airways team dedicated to special flights. As is customary, Italian and international press representatives will travel with Pope Francis in addition to the Papal entourage.
ITA Airways has prepared a flight plan that includes efficient operational procedures, the use of SAF (Sustainable Aviation Fuel) for an amount equal to 0.5% of the refuelling needed for flights, and the full offsetting of emissions that cannot be eliminated through participation in a Gold Standard certified CO2 reduction project.
Papal visit starts in Jakarta
Meanwhile, the Nationa Catholic Reporter confirmed that Pope Francis will visit Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, and Singapore in September on a 12-day Asian tour. This is the longest trip of his papacy and only the third papal trip to Indonesia, the other two being in 1970 and 1989.
He will visit Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, from 3 to 6 September; Port Moresby and Vanimo, Papua New Guinea, from 6 to 9 September; Dili, the capital of Timor-Leste, from 9 to 11 September; and Singapore from 11 to 13 September.
“The visit will focus on encounters with people on the peripheries of nations. He will meet with the elderly, the ill, “street children,” the disabled and all those who minister to them, as well as leaders of government and civil society,” the National Catholic Reporter stated.
With 281.5 million people, Indonesia has the world’s fourth-largest population and has the largest Muslim population of any country in the world, according to the CIA’s World Factbook. About 87.4% are Muslim, 7.5% are Protestant, 3.1% are Catholic, and 1.7% are Hindu.
The island nation of Papua New Guinea in Oceania is a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations. It is the world’s third-largest island country and home to at least 10 million people. It is considered the most linguistically diverse country in the world, with about 840 known Indigenous languages. According to the World Factbook, about 70% of the population are Christians, 26% are Catholic, and 1.4% belong to a non-Christian religion.
Internationally recognised as an independent state in 2002, Timor-Leste had been under Portuguese and Indonesian rule for decades. After years of conflict and instability, Timor-Leste is still one of the world’s poorest nations. Of the country’s 1.5 million people, 97.6% are Catholic, 2% are Protestant or evangelical Christians, and 0.2% are Muslims.
A former British trading colony, Singapore is today one of the world’s most prosperous countries. With a population of 6 million people, 31.1% are Buddhist, 18.9% are Christian (37.1% identify as Catholic) 15.6% are Muslim, 8.8% are Taoist, 5% are Hindu, and 20% identify with no religion.
(Source: National Catholic News, ITA Airways)
