New Garuda tested

New Garuda tested

Lured by the New Garuda advertising campaign, and during a
bout of dementia, I asked my travel agent KIA to book three
tickets for my family to fly to London on the aforementioned
airline. with reservations confirmed and tickets issued with OK
(confirmed) status I naively arrived at Cengkareng Airport
expecting to board the flight to the United Kingdom with no fuss.
At check-in the woman from Garuda advised me that one of our
tickets was only wait-listed from Denpasar to Gatwick. I followed
her to the Garuda office and a team of Garuda officials assembled
to examine the problem. The unanimous conclusion was that the
travel agent was at fault and KIA was roundly condemned. Then
they tried to persuade us to fly to Denpasar and hope for the
best.

Then a period of lethargy ensued. At this stage I provided
some firm encouragement to try and move on from condemnation
only, and attempt to find a solution to the flight problem.

By good fortune, one passenger booked to London was a no-show
and it seemed a simple task to re-assign his seat to us. Garuda
staff moved into high gear. Phone calls and telexes went to
Denpasar to execute this re-assignment, but an hour and
innumerable man-hours later the plan was abandoned as a failure.
We returned to Jakarta disappointed.

I do not know who made the mistake in reservations and I
invite Garuda and KIA to explain their positions. I do consider
Garuda was amateurish and uninterested in solving this mistake
for their passengers' benefit, and question whether their "new"
image translates into better service on the ground.

NICHOLAS ANDREW

Monmouthshire, UK