Batavia Air: Water, water everywhere<\/p>\n
Just as the scandal about water being found in the tanks of a
\nBatavia Air aircraft was unfolding, I found myself desperately
\ntrying to get tickets at Batam airport to return to Jakarta.<\/p>\n
Having found that no tickets were available with most of the
\nairlines for flights that day, I continued walking on
\ndespondently to the last airline ticket offices. Leaving
\nSriwijaya Airline's ticket office after having been told there
\nwere no tickets available, I was approached by a couple of ticket
\nscalpers offering me tickets for that very same airline, at a
\nrounded up and obviously marked up price, of course.<\/p>\n
The next ticket office was Batavia Air. My wife, an
\nIndonesian, went up and asked for tickets and they offered one
\nway to Jakarta at about 600,000 rupiah each. There were two
\npeople in the office: a young man and a woman. The man dealt with
\nmy wife's enquiry. I was keeping out of sight suspecting that
\nprices might somehow (but I don't quite know how) be bumped up
\nfor a bule.<\/p>\n
My wife came to me to confer about the flight time, etc. After
\na brief discussion with my wife, we both went up to the ticket
\noffice to request tickets. Alas, before we even got near the
\nticket office the man shouted out 800,000 rupiah! Suspecting
\nsomething was amiss, I asked if I could check his ID and found
\nthat he was an aircraft engineer \"working\" for Batavia Air.<\/p>\n
When we walked away in disgust after making it patently
\nobvious that we were displeased, our new engineer friend ran out
\nof the ticket office and squared up to me. He looked rather
\naggressive, like he wanted a showdown. I gave him a piece of my
\nmind and he went back into the ticket office with his tail
\nbetween his legs.<\/p>\n
Now, shouldn't an aircraft engineer be checking and fixing
\nplanes and all that sort of thing, rather than selling tickets
\nand behaving like a thug? You never know, there might just be
\nwater in the fuel tanks, or something.<\/p>\n
Clement Weather, akarta<\/p>", "url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/batavia-air-water-water-everywhere-1447893297", "image": "" }, "sponsor": "Okusi Associates", "sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com" }