Punctuality essential

We have had to travel a number of times recently on Indonesia's internal air services to Bali, Semarang, Medan, Lombok and Surabaya, for example. Very few of these flights were on time.

Recently, we flew to Pontianak, and Merpati managed to be late on both legs of the round trip, including a delay of more than two hours on the return flight.

Indonesia is a huge and naturally rich country, rapidly earning its place among the other Asian Tigers as a modern economic power. It is just not appropriate that its domestic airlines should provide the kind of service that may be encountered in the Third World.

Seriously, contempt for punctuality is the hallmark of a society that has never been anywhere, is not going anywhere and doesn't have much on its mind in the meantime. That is not Indonesia. If an airline cannot perform to acceptable industry standards, the government should penalize it.

BENJAMIN N. BROWN

Jakarta