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