Indonesian air travel: Have a nice fright, Sir

Indonesian air travel: Have a nice fright, Sir

This is a high-octane complaint about airports and airlines.
Just fasten your seat-belt and place the tray table uptight --
sorry, upright. And don't bother corresponding with the airlines
-- did you think the lost property office was for baggage?

Better rant at the cardboard cutouts of smiling staff that
clutter the check-in aisles. Now, that could be really effective
therapy.

Top of my list is the bouncy Mbak Mandala, who sold me a
ticket to Manado, gave me the receipt and then said the flight
had been canceled. The obvious question was: "Why did you just
issue the ticket?" Lots of laughter.

The joke was like the flight: I didn't get either.

Actually, she failed Airline Standard UP/U, which requires
passengers to be given notice of cancellations after they have
arrived at the airport. Well-qualified staff (Star Air used to be
tops) put your baggage on the conveyor belt and wait until it has
vanished behind the frilly plastic curtain before announcing
there's no plane.

It's useless asking: "Why didn't you call me before I checked
out of the hotel and took a two-hour cab drive through the Valley
of Death? You've got my cellular number." At this point, the
giggle-meter goes off the scale.

Stupid questions come from a stupid questioner.

They're right -- the problem is the passenger. The sacred
airline credo reads in letters of burnished aluminum: "The
customer is an idiot." Staff recite this awesome oath daily to
keep their jobs.

Like most consumers of nasi plastik, at 30,000 feet I like a
little assurance that everything is in order. It seems logical
that if the ground staff haven't got their act together, maybe
the cabin crew are equally sloppy. Did the refuelers really top-
up the tanks with the right stuff? Did the pilot kick all the
landing wheels himself?

So here's my wish list:
* Precise details on the boarding pass, please -- no blanks. If I
wanted to be in a guessing game, I'd enter Who Wants To Be A
Millionaire?, not an airport, and face an intimidating Tantowi
Yahya: "Before boarding Doom Airlines Flight Z999, will you use:
1) A departure lounge? 2) A toilet? 3) An emergency exit? 4) A
lawyer?"
* Can the departure monitors function and have accurate, timely
information? Yesterday's flight schedules may give historians hot
flushes, but today's are more useful for travellers. Staff
telling passengers headed to Surabaya to board through Departure
Lounge 6 where the flashing sign says Jakarta, when their
boarding passes stipulate Gate 10, builds confidence in the
future like a politician's pledge to eliminate poverty.
* Public Address systems are fine if they work (amplifiers built
since Marconi are on the market) and the broadcaster articulates
the words clearly. That means employing someone with a good
voice. Airline policy currently prohibits using anyone other than
Miss Communication, but surely she's overdue for a transfer? Even
Miss Direction would be an improvement.
* Could staff insist passengers follow the published rules or
abandon them? (The regulations, not the passengers -- we're lost
already.) For example, by not serving fat and aggressive late
arrivals who barge to the front when other potential passengers
have been queuing patiently for 30 minutes. Latecomers can't all
be wives and mistresses of the airline's directors.

Are those warnings about not using mobile phones serious? I
quit complaining on a Lion Air flight when the attendant ignored
three users (including a bule, or foreigner) sitting close by her
safety feature presentation: "Use of mobile phones and other
electronic devices is strictly prohibited." That's what she
probably said. Who knows? Her voice was drowned out by ring tones
-- Greensleeves, the 1812 Overture and a few bars of Air Supply.

Maybe, such instructions are just to pass the time while they
look for a pilot who remembers how the thing works, because the
right captain is still sitting in the wrong departure lounge.

How can little Nokias upset the navigation systems of big
Boeings? The idea is ridiculous. Who cares whether the cockpit
instruments say we're descending into Soekarno-Hatta when we're
really circling Mt. Bromo? Stop worrying. No one has ever gotten
out of this life alive.

Lest you think these are the ravings of a bule who has lived
too long in Indonesia (or maybe not long enough), let me tell you
about my last trip south.

The plane arrived late into Perth and the doors of the
airbridge were closed. More than 160 Australians, rugged
individualists all, independent custodians of a great birthright
of robust anti-authority sentiments, stood for 10 minutes in a
sealed steel tube, waiting for someone to do something.

Just like sheep -- except that sheep bleat.

Immigration sneered that it had nothing to do with them.
Airport management said it was the responsibility of Air
Paradise. The airline blamed the airport; no one else had whinged
-- so what was the problem?

As I said -- maybe it's the fault of those naive passengers
who really believe the captain when he says, "Thank you for
choosing to fly with us," when he knows seat price, not brand
loyalty, is the key factor in choosing a carrier.

But Australian airline staff still have much to learn from
their Indonesian counterparts in dealing with aggrieved
customers. For starters, the Aussies don't laugh.

Well, not in your face, anyway.

-- Duncan Graham