Garuda, what's wrong with you?

Garuda, what's wrong with you?

I was beginning to be convinced that the level of service of Garuda Indonesia had significantly improved in the past two years, that was, until Dec. 29, 2001.

When my wife and I checked in at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport on that day, one of Garuda's ground staff informed us that flight GA404 from Jakarta to Denpasar scheduled to depart at 11 a.m. on that day would be delayed until 3 p.m. due to "operational reasons".

We frittered away our time at the airport until 2:30 p.m., and had a complimentary lunch provided by Garuda. While waiting for the boarding announcement at Gate F2, there was an unexpected announcement of a further delay, this time until 4 p.m., without any clarification of the cause.

Finally, we got on a bus and boarded the aircraft. However, the cabin was very hot, possibly due to air-conditioner trouble.

As the aircraft did not move, and there was no announcement, some of the passengers, including myself, started to suspect that there was something wrong. I asked one of the cabin attendants if there was anything wrong with the aircraft.

I asked him to at least make an announcement for passengers to let them know what was happening. He said, pointing to the telephone-like microphone used for making announcements, "How can I make an announcement? This is out of order!"

After a while, all of us had to leave the aircraft and get on buses to go back to Gate F2 again. It was already 5 p.m.

At the check-in counter, ground staff told us that we could take an alternative flight scheduled for 7:30 a.m. the next morning, or the GA4122 scheduled for 7:30 p.m. the same day.

Anyway, the aircraft left Soekarno-Hatta at 8 p.m., after a nine-hour delay, and it was already 11 p.m. (Jakarta time) when we checked into our hotel in Bali.

Dear Garuda Indonesia, thank you for destroying the whole first day of our holiday, and as frequent visitors to Bali, we will never use your airline again, but rather we will use other domestic airlines.

MOGI MASAMICHI

Jakarta