Airlines tussle in services dogfight

To celebrate the 48th anniversary of the country's flag carrier, Garuda Indonesia, which falls today, The Jakarta Post investigated airline service. The focus is on Garuda but other airlines are also covered. The stories are written by Johannes Simbolon, Lukman Natanegara, K. Basrie, Christiani S.A. Tumelap, A. Junaidi, Buni Yani and IGN Oka Budhi Yogaswara

JAKARTA (JP): Imagine you are traveling on a long-haul flight from Jakarta to London and no food is served and no in-flight entertainment is provided.

After stopping over at Kuala Lumpur, or somewhere else in the region, the next leg of the journey is as boring as hell.

For more than ten hours, all you can see are other bored passengers and the clouds or darkness outside. You could kill some of the time by thinking how beautiful London is but bad thoughts may also spring to mind, such as will the plane plunge out of the sky or be hijacked?

The reality is very different. No airline likes to make long- haul flights a nightmare; indeed they go out of their to make travelers feel at home, relaxed, secure and happy before, during and after the flight.

And the competition is getting tougher and tougher.

Last year British Airways introduced a new seat design for its first class cabin to lure the super-rich customers. The capsule- like seat can be changed into a bed at the press of a button, enabling passengers to sleep as comfortably as at home.

Reports say the company spent 115 million, a quarter of its latest annual after-tax profit, to renovate all its first class facilities.

Ansett Australia, which began flight to Jakarta last year, tried to lure passengers by keeping all its flights smoking-free and serving a variety of lavish food and drinks.

From last week frequent travelers also had the opportunity to have a hand, neck and back massage by a qualified masseur in its lounge.

"Business life and stress go together, making the idea of a massage service available for business travelers seem logical," company service and standards coordinator Kathy Rodwell said.

Singapore Airlines is meanwhile still developing its in-flight entertainment, known as KrisWorld.

"We are one of the first airlines to offer a comprehensive in- flight entertainment system," company general manager for Indonesia Tan Chik Quee claimed in an interview with the The Jakarta Post.

The entertainment system offers 22 free video channels, dozens of new movies, news and information channel, and music. Also available for free are popular Nintendo games like Super Mario World, Dragon's Eye and F-Zero.

Anyone who wants to make a phone call needs only to slip his or her credit card into the handset slot to activate the telephone.

Domestic

How's about Indonesia's domestic airlines though?

While many international airlines are busy applying ever more sophisticated technology and marketing strategies, domestic airlines are still facing such basic problems as delayed flights and curt cabin crew.

Chairman of the Indonesian National Air Carriers Association Soelarto Hadisoemarto said domestic airlines had two major weaknesses -- the low rate of on-time flights and the use of aging fleets.

"On-time schedules are related to management. Many overseas airlines have successfully limited the rate of delayed and canceled flights. We also know that foreign airlines operate new aircraft," he said.

Six airlines offer scheduled flights in Indonesia: Sempati Air, Garuda Indonesia, Merpati Nusantara Airlines, Mandala Airlines, Bouraq Airlines and Dirgantara Air Service.

Garuda operates a fleet of 60 aircraft. Of these the only relatively new ones are three Boeing 747-400s, one Airbus 330- 300, and one MD-11 ER.

Sempati Air operates more than 25 aircraft, including new Fokker 70s, and Merpati has more than 100, Bouraq with 25 and Mandala, with 10 airplanes, both use comparatively old aircraft.

The aging fleets are regularly blamed for flight delays.

"I once flew overseas with Garuda from Jakarta. The flight was delayed for ages because of an engine problem. Then after taking off, the plane was forced to return to the airport because of further engine problems," said Babe, an expatriate executive.

Harun Hajadi, president director of Ciputra Group, also blamed the delays on the poor discipline of the crews.

"I once traveled with Garuda. All the passengers were aboard but the plane did not move because the pilot had not arrived," he said.

When asked to comment, Garuda's president Soepandi said that the airline continuously worked hard to find out and tackle its customers' complaints, including delayed services.

As a result, the rate of Garuda's flight delays was around 10 to 15 percent in the past few months, said Dharmadi, Garuda's director for operational affairs.

The maximum tolerable rate set by the International Air Transport Association is 15 percent.

Soepandi said: "We're still working hard to further reduce the delays."

Sempati Air, which received management awards for marketing from Japan Airlines, World's Executive Digest and the Asian Institute of Management, tried to cure the chronic "delay disease" by introducing an on-time guarantee voucher system in 1991.

It gave vouchers to passengers for any flights which were delayed for more than 26 minutes. The airline credited each minute's delay at Rp 2,000, but the maximum compensation for passengers for one flight was Rp 120,000, equivalent to 60 minutes. Passengers could use the nonrefundable vouchers to defray the cost of other Sempati tickets.

The company issued vouchers worth Rp 2.25 billion per month and received payments with the vouchers of approximately Rp 1 billion a month.

Last March, Sempati dropped the system.

"The measure did not generate an internal self-drive within the management to offer the public on-time schedules," said the company's then president Hasan M. Soejono.

One lesson from the experience is that however good the marketing strategy and product are, the people behind them still matter most.

"Competition is a fight on many fronts. When we are talking about competition, it is more than fares and products. It is also how we produce, how we train people, the culture in the company and the attitude of your staff. Those things are all part of the weapons in competition," said Quee.

"All components matter. You can give a good product, but if the attitude of the staff is not good, passengers will leave you," he added.

Thirty eight foreign airlines fly to Indonesia and the government is inviting them to serve more destinations in the country in anticipation of increased tourist arrivals by 2005.

Last year American aircraft manufacturer McDonnel Douglas predicted the Asia-Pacific region would become the world's second largest market for commercial aircraft after the United States in 20 years. Many foreign airlines have anticipated this by buying new aircraft.

But will the domestic airlines be able to survive the tougher competition against foreign airlines either at home or abroad? Only time will tell.