A CONTRACT THAT WAITED TWO YEARS FOR ITS FUNDING

Vaisala has confirmed that a €25 million award for airport weather systems and equipment modernising 14 Indonesian airports will be included in its orders received for the third quarter of 2026, the customer having secured the necessary financing. The contract was signed in 2024 with the Indonesian Agency for Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics, known as BMKG, but was subject to final financing arrangements and had not previously been recognised in the company’s order book. Implementation begins this autumn and is estimated to run for three years. It is Vaisala’s largest aviation weather project to date.

The funding route is worth noting because it explains the two-year gap. The project is financed through the Finnish Public Sector Investment Facility, an instrument governed by Finland’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs and applicable to projects supporting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals in developing countries. Concessional development financing of this kind operates on longer approval timescales than commercial procurement, which is why a signed contract can sit for two years before becoming an order.

THREE DISTINCT CAPABILITIES

The programme comprises three technically separate elements. Eight airports receive the AviMet Automated Weather Observing System, the sensor and processing suite that generates the routine meteorological observations air traffic services and flight crews work from. Four airports receive a wind shear alert system combining X-band weather radar with wind lidar — a pairing that addresses the two distinct forms of the hazard, since radar detects shear associated with precipitation while lidar detects it in clear air, where a significant proportion of low-level wind shear events occur and where radar alone will not see it.

The third element is the one specific to Indonesian conditions. A specialised system using the Finnish Meteorological Institute’s SILAM dispersion model will support authorities in estimating the movement of ash clouds from volcanic eruptions. Indonesia sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire with an estimated 80 active volcanoes, and volcanic ash is among the few atmospheric hazards capable of causing multiple simultaneous engine flameouts. The operational problem is not detecting an eruption but forecasting where the ash will be over the following hours across a busy airspace – which is a modelling task rather than a sensing one.

THE MARKET BEING EQUIPPED

Anne Jalkala, Executive Vice President for Weather, Energy and Environment at Vaisala, said securing funding enabled the project to strengthen aviation safety and turn weather preparedness into concrete improvements, and that Indonesia was investing in infrastructure protecting passengers and ground personnel in demanding tropical and volcanic conditions while building capacity for a growing aviation market.

The scale of that market gives the programme its context. IATA data show Asia-Pacific held 34.5 per cent of the world air passenger market in 2025, and Indonesia is the largest aviation market in Southeast Asia, recording more than 59 million domestic and 20 million international passengers in 2025 according to the Indonesian Bureau of Statistics. Air travel across the archipelago connects more than 17,000 islands, a geography in which aviation substitutes for surface transport rather than competing with it. Vaisala will now work with BMKG and Finnish partners on detailed design, deployment and capacity building. The company employs close to 2,500 people and is listed on Nasdaq Helsinki.