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