Plis Deh Jakarta!

180 passengers held five AirAsia crew members hostage for 2 hours because frustration caused by a prolonged delay of their flight to Kuala Lumpur this morning.

The flight was previously planned to take off at 6.15, but was delayed to 12 PM. Come 12 PM, another announcement was made that the flight had been postponed to 3 PM. Eventually the disgruntled passangers took the flight crew hostage and the airport authorities had to intervene.

If I was cooped up in a boring airport lounge for 9 hours, I think I’d go crazy as well.

Bandara Ahmad Yani, Semarang. Sekali-sekali agak melenceng dari judul blog ini ya… he he.

Oleh-oleh lebaran dari Yosita; thanks ya!

Soekarno-Hatta International Airport gets 139 new toilets and 9 prayer rooms, as announced at a ceremony inaugurating the new facilities. The event itself was done in one of the new ladies’ washrooms.

An official event held in a toilet? Really?

These points are ironically funny about Jakarta’s own Soekarno-Hatta International Airport:

• there’s no way to get to it other than by road. No high-speed train access, nothing. Except if you fly in from other cities…
• there’s only 2 ways to get in by road: through the freeway and through a back entrance, and they are very far from each other. So if one passage is blocked you have to take a 2-hour detour to get to the other.
• the main freeway passes a a long swath of swamp. Yes, a swamp. Only recent flooding and global warming has caused the government to think about fixing or rising the road.
• The bus service to and from the airport is irregular at best. What’s the point of riding the bus if you don’t know the schedule?
• City check-in counters don’t get you squat if the roads are jammed all the way to the airport… which they most often are.
• You’re in for the time of your life waiting for checked baggage. I don’t know why, every one tends to try to get the best position at the baggage conveyor belt, as though as they want to get the first bag out.
• Fast food is bas as it is at any given mall, and at the airport it’s even worse at almost double the price.
• For a place where people do a lot of waiting, there’s not an awful lot of seats. And the seats that are available, have nests of cockroaches inside.
• For an international gateway to Indonesia, the lighting is like a beat-up off the track shopping centre. Lot’s of lights but bad illumination. But bright enough so you can see the cracks in the cement.
• You can choose from a multitude of taxi brands, official or non-official, but you never know which one will rip you off or take you on the scenic route.