Garuda's policy, baby under three

Garuda's policy, baby under three

I am writing in complaint of a Garuda policy as presented to me on my return trip to Jakarta from Denpasar on Dec. 1. 1995. When I checked in to my flight GA 665 on Dec. 1 with my two-month-old son, Joseph Azar, and my mother, a Garuda employee asked me the age of Joseph. I told him two months. He asked if I had a doctor's letter stating his fitness for travel. I responded, "no." He said that in order for Joseph to fly on Garuda to Jakarta he needed a letter from my doctor stating that Joseph, being under three months of age, was healthy to travel.

I was extremely surprised because at Soekarno-Hatta airport in Jakarta just five days earlier I was never asked for such letter. In fact, I had previously traveled with Joseph on two international trips on Singapore Airlines, once when he was just ten days old (he was delivered in Singapore and my husband and I were returning to our home in Jakarta) and again to Singapore for doctors' visits when he was six weeks old. On neither of those two occasions were we asked for such a letter.

After arguing with a Garuda employee for nearly an hour and repeatedly asking for a copy of this written policy stating that because my son was under three months of age I needed a travel letter from our doctor, I was told that I could not board the unless I signed a letter freeing Garuda Airlines from all responsibility for Joseph's health on the airplane in case he died enroute to Jakarta. Of course, initially they could not provide me a copy of this Declaration written in English and finally found one as the plane was ready to take off and I was standing at the gate with my boarding passes in hand.

I signed this Declaration under protest -- the quality of the English was atrocious and illogical, but seeing that my mother had to return to Jakarta to board an international flight the next day for her return to the United States, I signed the Declaration.

My complaints are twofold, one that I was never given a copy of the rule and two that I was not told about this rule in Jakarta, before I traveled to Denpasar. I asked the employee to send me a copy of this rule to my house in Jakarta, but I have not received it yet. Rather bizarrely, I did however receive a Christmas card from him.

Could Garuda please explain itself ?

MRS. MARY-ALICE GILLOGLY

Jakarta