Airline Adventures

Our most recent trip on an Indonesian airline was the most eventfully and unforgettable yet…

It’s Idul Fitri, the end of the fasting month, which, in a country of 80% Muslim population, mean folks are all “pulang kampung” (home for the holidays)… so flights are booked solid. Two weeks ago, when we found out we were going to have a holiday, and we booked our tickets, we were on the waiting list!

We were flying with Wings Air (which is actually the same things as Lion Air), on a Dash-8 (300), a little twin prop airplane which seats about 30 people…. Or at least, that’s the NUMBER of SEATS on board… This time, it was actually seating several more than the capacity – with 3 people sitting in 2 seats in several places around the plane! When I mentioned this seeming discrepancy, the flight director tried to brush me off saying, no, no, it’s all ok. When I was a little more adamant about this (illegal) overloading, he still maintained that all was ok, and proceeded to spare up another seat by asking another person to triple up. By this time there were 5 extra passengers (which of course means all their luggage, and at holiday times, this is usually more than average… and on a plane of this size, amounts to a significant increase! Like 30%!)

To my real surprise, NO ONE else on the plane seemed to have any problem with this, or at least no one was making any noise… even the people who were being asked to triple up didn’t mind being shuffled and uncomforted!

Anyway, that was TOO much! ESPECIALLY given the safety track record of airlines in Indonesia… Martin, completely stressed, grabbed his bag and deplaned, while I, for the 5th time, had a word with the crew. This time a little louder, and a little more forcefully. I tried to explain to them there were reasons for the load limits imposed on airplanes, and although they are well within safety limits, they have no authority to decide to disobey them, and that this was completely UNSAFE, etc, etc… That they have no right to take the lives of all these passengers into their own hands… and did they not value their own lives? And why did they think Indonesian airlines were in such a predicament anyway!?

When it seemed like nothing was getting through I finally took a more adamant stand, saying their plane wasn’t flying with me on it if it was overloaded, and if I wasn’t on board when it took off they would have other problems.

I just stood on the pulldown stairway/gangplank until they offloaded the extra passengers (and when these groaned and gave me the evil eye, I just asked them if it wasn’t better to be alive). By this time Martin was almost back at the terminal and they had to go retrieve him, which they did, and we settled into our seats, quite disgruntled. I apologized (for the delay… although, of course, we were already 1.5 hours late anyway, normal in Indo… so the 5-10 mins I caused was nothing!)

Once we were mid-flight, I noticed something funny in the cockpit – they were being awfully careful about the curtain closed between the cabin and the washroom/galley/cockpit; they didn’t even leave it open during take-off and landing, which breaks some other regulation, I’m sure! In the end, it turned out they had stashed one of the extra passengers between the 2 pilots! (I later found out she paid an additional 2 million rupiah on top of the regular ticket price!!!)

THEN, when we got off in Manado, the 4 other extra passengers deplaned – from the BAGGAGE compartment!!!

You’re F’ING KIDDING ME! So, although we were lucky and arrived whole, I will not be letting this lie!!!

Recently (within the last 2-4 months), there were huge investigations in to the safety and security of Indo Airlines – Three carries were subjected to heavy fines and most their flights grounded until they were able to comply with a series of discrepancies between their status quo and the regulations. This one, WINGS AIR, was one of the ones that had a few mechanical issues with their fleet… great! Just imagine!

So, when I went to report the ‘incident’ to the Lion/Wings Office, one of the kids working there seemed to think this was funny, which of course, got me more riled up! I told them that I wanted to make a formal complaint and report… they said in order to make a report, they would call Sorong, the origin of the flight, to check if what I was saying was true (!?!) Yeah, what reason do I have to lie!?!?!? It’s really likely that they’re going to admit to having broken about a dozen rules, putting passengers’ safety at risk! I told them if they couldn’t believe me, that there were 30 (in fact 35!) other passengers that were witness to same, and would be able to confirm! And if they really wanted the truth, they’d have more success by checking the pockets of their employees in Sorong – for the extra millions they were extorting from the additional passengers, to break the rules!

I got nowhere with them, and I realized that they weren’t the right people to complain to anyway… I’m in the process of drafting a letter to the high commission of airline safety in Indonesia, and at the suggestion of my dad, will be copying it to IATA (the International Air Transport Association), and maybe even the Aviation Safety Foundation of Australasia. Let’s just see if that gets their attention; maybe now they’ll take my complaint a little more seriously. Do they think a couple hundred dollars extra is enough cause to risk a whole planeful of people’s families grief at the major holiday of the year if their little plan backfired!? Gee, they really value their customers!