Plane leaves without Sarwono

JAKARTA (JP): If Garuda Indonesia once complained about senior government officials keeping Garuda flights from leaving on time, Minister of Environment Sarwono Kusumaatmadja now has a bone to pick with the flag carrier: It left him on the tarmac of the Soekarno-Hatta airport.

As reported by Antara, Sarwono failed to take off yesterday on a Singapore-bound Garuda flight, although he had checked in on time.

The minister, who was to attend a meeting of environmental ministers of Southeast Asian countries grouped in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, told Antara he arrived at the airport at 5:40 a.m. for a flight that was to leave at 6:10.

Sarwono said he had his boarding pass torn by an airport officer, and then proceeded to the VIP lounge in Terminal I.

"I was waiting for the boarding announcement," he said. "An officer came to escort me to a bus to take me to Terminal II, where the plane was supposed to be waiting. But when we got there, the plane was already at the end of the runway."

Antara did not say if Sarwono was angry, but described him as "pacing up and down" as he spoke to the reporter waiting for the next plane. He was put on the next available flight to Singapore, a Singapore Airlines flight that left at 7:30 a.m.

Garuda chief spokesman Jansius Siahaan was not available to comment on the incident, but a staff member said the airline was now investigating into this embarrassing incident.

"We regret that this happened," the officer said, who asked for anonymity because he was not authorized to make statements.

Preliminary checks indicated that the radio of the escorting officer at the VIP lounge "was not working well", that he missed the repeated calls for boarding. As with standard procedures, the call was made least three times, the Garuda PR officer said.

"But the bus taking Pak Sarwono arrived at 6:10. By then, the air traffic controller had already given the plane clearance for take-off," he said. He confirmed that it normally takes about five minutes to travel from Terminal I to Terminal II, but he could not say what time the bus arrived to pick up the minister.

Antara quoted an airport official as saying that the mistake was with ground officers who did not check the names of passengers already on board. (anr)