EVA Air responds

We write in response to Mr. Firman Widjaja's letter Long journey to U.S. (Jan. 14, 1997).

EVA Air very much regrets the inconvenience experienced by Mr. Widjaja's son, Nicko Widjaja on his recent visit to the United States, and we understand fully the dissatisfaction and distress that this must have caused.

At this time, we have been unable to clarify precisely the sequence of events affecting Mr. Nicko Widjaja, and we would very much appreciate assistance in contacting him in the United States in our desire to speak with him personally, and to try to bring this matter to a satisfactory conclusion.

EVA Air has, however, undertaken an investigation which appears to show that a discrepancy arose concerning the system employed by the airline for the reconfirmation of bookings. Like most international carriers, EVA Air requires passengers to reconfirm their bookings at minimum or 72 hours prior to travel. Since no reconfirmation was received from Mr. Nicko Widjaja, his booking was automatically canceled by our central reservation system.

A time difference which exists between our reservations system and Soekarno-Hatta Airport check-in at Jakarta airport caused Mr. Nicko Widjaja's booking to still show confirmed status at the time he checked in for his flight, and this is why his booking was accepted by our check-in agent at Jakarta airport.

This is the first time that EVA Air has experienced a situation of this kind, and in this respect, we have already taken steps in our efforts to ensure that it does not happen again. In addition, we wish to apologize for being unable to accept Mr. Nicko Widjaja on board BR18, on Jan. 4, 1997 after Mr. Widjaja had completed check-in procedure at Jakarta airport.

We have also made inquires from our employees at CKS Airport, Taipei, and found that our airport staff offered to book Mr. Nicko Widjaja on the flight routing Taipei-Honolulu-Portland in their best efforts to meet his request to travel to the United States as quickly as possible. Mr. Nicko Widjaja was very much aware that at the time he purchased the ticket his reservation for the Honolulu-Portland sector with Hawaiian Airlines was still on request.

We would be most grateful if Mr. Widjaja could provide us with his son's telephone number and address so that we can contact him directly.

We seek to provide compensation to Mr. Nicko Widjaja for his accommodation expenses in Taipei and Honolulu, and also to refund his Taipei-Honolulu ticket, in addition to any fare differential between Taipei and San Francisco.

PETER CHEN

EVA Air Representative

in Jakarta