Garuda air cargo handling
Garuda air cargo handling
On Dec. 23, 2002, we had a shipment of two boxes containing 16
pots of poinsettia plants destined for Semarang. The boxes were
specifically designed and manufactured for shipping potted plants
or flowers of this particular size, and the plants inside the
boxes were wrapped in heavy Samson paper sleeves, specifically
made and designed to package such plants for shipping.
On the address labels were written Jangan dibalik (Do not turn
upside down) and the boxes were printed with arrows to indicate
their upright position. The Surat Muatan Udara (SMU), or the air
cargo invoice, of this particular shipment was No. 126-6640051-5,
and we were charged with and paid the 125 percent perishable
cargo rate.
Normal handling would not have damaged the plants. The only
way the plants could have been damaged was if the boxes were
thrown from one handler to another, and/or were dropped. This is
very possible, because our plants are grown in a mixture of loose
peat. As you can guess already, five of the 16 pots were crushed.
Because the plants are relatively light, they almost always
get charged by volume weight, and a whopping Rp 112,219 for 94.5
kg was charged for an actual weight of 48 kg, plus other
administrative and storage charges, not including the cost from
Bogor to Cengkareng.
We reported the incident to Garuda in Cengkareng, and were
informed that the consignee in Semarang contact Garuda there, and
that Garuda would pay damages. The consignee had taken photos of
the crushed plants/flowers immediately after opening the boxes,
but afterwards cut the flowers off the damaged plants in an
effort to save the beautiful part of the plants. He took the
photos to Garuda in Semarang, but to no avail. Garuda blamed the
damage on the packaging.
We have shipped much bigger quantities of the same plants to
Surabaya, Yogyakarta, Bali and Singapore previously, and would
have lost many plants if our packaging was faulty.
The crux of the matter is that although Garuda had charged
higher rates for perishable cargo, it did not handle the cargo
accordingly, and did not want to take responsibility when things
went wrong as a result.
BENNY TJIA, Bogor, West Java