Passenger service

Passenger service

Returning to one's hometown requires early preparation.
However, the effort to avoid peak days, on the contrary, brought
negative effects, as demonstrated in an ugly incident at state
shipping company PT Pelni's ticket office at Kemayoran, Jakarta,
on Dec. 6.

The large number of passengers queuing since early morning for
tickets on SS Kelud for Belawan, Medan, could no longer contain
their emotions when most of them had to leave empty-handed. Only
a very few managed to obtain tickets.

When it was announced that the tickets were sold out, the
crowd immediately went berserk.

The incident should never have occurred -- passengers had been
waiting for between four and seven hours. After the third
customer, the monitor indicated that the tickets were sold out.
Everyone wondered about the existence of more than 1,000 tickets.
Could it be possible that PT Pelni only sold a few?

Although selling through travel agents is a normal procedure,
PT Pelni, as the operator, should have made more tickets
available at its counters. Its duty is to serve the public, hence
the trickery was not only against the principles of public
service but also caused public suffering and subjected people to
extortion.

If PT Pelni can sell tickets at a cheaper rate, why should it
do so through other hands, thereby making them more costly? If
such methods -- common in former days -- are allowed to continue,
it is really up to PT Pelni, and other transportation companies,
to bear the consequences.

It must be noted that if public service is not attended to, it
will then mean that an institution has denied its main public
function. Just remember, the public can make claims in many ways.

-- Warta Kota, Jakarta