(Minangkabau International Airport, Padang, West Sumatra)

Sumatra is the 6th largest and the 5th most populous island in the world. Both of those stats sound about right, even though there is no global correlation between island size and population (Greenland is the largest island, but is barely populated).

The more mind-blowing fact is that over 59 million people are living on the island of Sumatra. If it were a country, it would be the 25th most populated, between South Africa and Italy.

Despite this massive population, there are very few flights between cities in Sumatra. I discovered this after researching a trip to the island. I'm planning to visit all of the railway systems of Sumatra, but there are only small sections on different parts of the island. There is no Trans-Sumatra Railway yet, so I would have to get the bus or fly between the main cities.

Instead of planning my rail trip, I got sidetracked into researching air travel in Sumatra. This article looks at the flights between the main cities of Sumatra, the alternatives of driving and railways, and possible reasons why there are so few intra-island flights.

Flights between major cities in Sumatra

The main railways of Sumatra are centred around Medan and Palembang, and some fragments of railways near Padang. To visit them all will require some air travel, but when I started searching on Skyscanner, I couldn’t find any direct flights. This seemed odd, so I started checking the official airport pages, Wiki pages, and the airlines themselves.

To illustrate the lack of connectivity, I have mapped flights between the 5 most populated cities and Banda Aceh.

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