Garuda flight cancellations

Garuda's decision to suspend flights to Frankfurt and Amsterdam as of Jan. 22, 2003, onwards is not only shortsighted in the extreme but also fails to make any business or political sense.

At a time when other international carriers have already reduced their flights to Indonesia, it would have made perfect business sense for the national carrier to maintain its scheduled European flights and to take advantage of the reduced seating capacity.

While the hotel industry has initiated a number of measures to shore up the sorely affected Bali tourist business, government statements and declarations of support ring increasingly hollow and meaningless.

Instead of helping to restore both Indonesia's and Bali's image as a safe tourist destination, the decision by the country's national carrier to cancel strategically important flights, unfortunately, conveys the opposite message.

Garuda's decision is all the more surprising in view of the fact that except for business-class seats, its January flights to Europe are fully booked. On the other hand, how on earth are visitors with a Garuda round-trip ticket expected to get back home from their year-end Indonesian holiday?

I have a number of European visitors arriving on Garuda round- trip tickets in December and I'm still trying to figure out how to get them home again.

JOE L. SPARTZ, Jakarta