Legal Weaknesses and Future Restoration of the Indonesia–Singapore FIR Arrangement

Abstract

Background: The 2022 realignment placed the relevant airspace over the Riau and Natuna Islands within the Jakarta Flight Information Region (FIR), while Indonesia continued to delegate air navigation services in Sectors A and B to Singapore from the surface to 37,000 feet. Objective: This article evaluates the legal weaknesses of the arrangement, examines whether formal sovereignty has become effective operational control, and formulates a legally and technically reversible restoration pathway. Methods: A normative-empirical legal method was applied through statutory, treaty, conceptual, historical, comparative, case, and policy approaches. Primary legal instruments, ICAO documents, court decisions, institutional reports, and peer-reviewed studies were analyzed qualitatively. Results: The 2022 Agreement is more operationally effective than the 1995 arrangement because it expands the Jakarta FIR, clarifies Indonesia as the delegating State, limits Singapore’s services vertically, and regulates coordination and navigation charges. Nevertheless, its twenty-five-year duration, limited five-year review, broad delegated service package, data asymmetry, and absence of readiness-based transfer mechanisms create a risk of factual permanence. Conclusion: Delegation remains legitimate only when necessary, proportionate, accountable, transparent, and reversible. A Sovereign–Collaborative Adaptive FIR model is proposed, combining real-time data access, independent audit, civil–military oversight, shadow operations, a readiness index, and phased transfer through bilateral amendment and ICAO procedures.