Fly in Indonesia, Get $

Last updated: January 8, 2012

Starting today, Indonesia’s domestic airlines must compensate passengers affected by delays.

As reported in The Jakarta Post, effective 1 January 2012 airlines will need to give money to all passengers affected by delayed, rerouted and cancelled flights.

The earlier objections from the airlines have been addressed to their satisfaction, so Indonesia’s Transport Ministry has pushed ahead with the new policy, originally planned to be implemented in early November.

Passengers will be eligible to get $ in the following situations:

• – Delays of more than 4 hours: Passengers will receive Rp300 000 ($US33) each.
• – Rerouted flights: Passengers will receive Rp150 000 ($US17) each, and the airline must help the passengers reach their original destination.
• – Flights cancelled less than 7 days in advance: Passengers will receive double the value of the ticket, i.e. a full refund plus further compensation of the value of the ticket.

The boring but important fine print:

1. No compensation is necessary for delays beyond the airline’s control, such as: inclement weather, airport issues (e.g. delays refueling, damaged runway), etc.

2. Airlines do not have to pay compensation in cash; they can use ticket vouchers instead. (The latter are not so useful for e.g. tourists who will not be coming back any time soon, and it is 99% likely airlines will give vouchers instead.)

3. Airline do not have to pay the compensation until the day after the flight, probably making it necessary for passengers to make a potentially long and inconvenient return trip to either the airport or an airline ticket office;

Transportation Minister Lt. Gen. (ret.) E.E. Mangindaan hopes that this new policy will help promote Indonesian airlines’ safety and discipline in managing their companies and flight operations.

Of course, it would be better to avoid long delays and cancelled/rerouted flights all together.

To help people know which airlines are the best/worst in this area, Mau Ke Mana has now created an Indonesian domestic airline reliability guide. It will log all the times (starting today, 1 January 2012) that our clients’ flights have been rescheduled or cancelled, how much notice was given and how it affected the client. In conjunction with our more general guide, Which Airline, it is designed to help clients make an informed choice.

In the meantime, a question: If this law was applied retrospectively (i.e. to past Indonesian domestic flights), how much compensation would you be eligible to receive? Feel free to name and shame airlines who have given you problems in the past.

6 Comments on “Fly in Indonesia, Get $”

1. Chris says:

   January 4, 2012 at 3:16 pm

   Batavia Air has become the first to compensate its passengers, for a delay longer than 4 hours:

   Batavia pays compensation to passengers

   It is also now a little clearer how the passengers receive the compensation:

   Bambang said that as stipulated in the regulation, the airline had given a voucher to each passenger which could be cashed in any of the airline’s branch offices in the country within a month of issue.

2. Mas Martin says:

   January 9, 2012 at 7:18 pm

   I used to have troubles with several cancelled / “rescheduled” Indonesia Air Asia flights. It took months to process the compensation claim. It took many attempts to contact Indonesia Air Asia (and uncountable semi-automatic replies) before Chris from Mau ke Mana finally helped me to recieve my (relatively modest) payment back. Air Asia has supposedly introduced “compensation” for delayed flights a long time ago, the question is, whether this was just a marketing trick.

   I can’t speculate how much I would receive in compensation if the regulation was applied retroactively… however, the most flight cancellations was experienced from Air Asia (from Garuda just once, after my complaint I was invited by the branch director in Solo and offered explanation, I was surely nice). The worst delay certainly with Merpati (around 8 hrs in transit in Makassar), the ground staff was indifferent and any sign of courtesy to annoyed passengers was totally lacking. There was no compensation whatsoever, not even a serious appology.

   Perhaps the most interesting improvement for passenger would be a “single inquiry/ complaint/ contact point”, established by the airline regulator, promoting passenger rights and dealing with passenger complaints after being turned away by the airlines themselves… It could perform also as an information service that would help contacting the airlines – in many cases the airlines don’t even publish proper contacts.

3. Mas Martin says:

   January 9, 2012 at 7:20 pm

   My appology for a typo, I meant “IT was surely nice…”.

4. BrotherMouzone says:

   January 11, 2012 at 1:39 pm

   “Bambang said that as stipulated in the regulation, the airline had given a voucher to each passenger which could be cashed in any of the airline’s branch offices in the country within a month of issue.”

   So to enjoy this “refund” you;

   a) have to be willing to book another flight within one month
   b) be willing to use the same airline again
   and
   c) be willing to go to branch office of the airline (rather than your regular convenient travel agent, and I bet you can’t use these vouchers for online booking).

   No wonder the airlines agreed to these terms; they are intentionally designed to ensure that virtually nobody ever cashes in their vouchers.

   All this is just so much froth; at the end of the day, an airline’s delays will cost it immediately through damage to reputation. Those airlines that I have found to be consistently late, I stop using.

   The chance of getting a few hundred thousand rupiah back (if I queue at their office and fly with them again) is not going to sway me either way.

5. Chris says:

   April 6, 2012 at 2:28 pm

   If you fly Air Asia and buy AirAsia Insure (starting at Rp25 000) you can get a little bit more compensation for a smaller delay:

   Flight cancellation and delay more than 2 hours* will get compensation as much as Rp 600.000**.

   *For delays greater than 2 (two) hours of scheduled departure time caused solely by AirAsia. Terms and conditions apply.

   **AirAsia INSURE Travel Protection is underwritten by insurance companies from your respective departing countries. Benefits offered are subjected to the type of plan purchased. Visit http://www.airasiainsure.com for more info.

   However, the benefit for a flight cancellation is less:

   Up to original total cost of flight

   It is not known whether passengers who buy the Air Asia flight insurance disqualify themselves from the legally-mandated compensation described above.

6. Chris says:

   October 1, 2012 at 11:02 pm

   For the first time, a Mau Ke Mana client had his flight cancelled less than a week in advance.

   In fact, the airline (Batavia Air) cancelled our client’s flight to Sorong only two days in advance. Ironically, “Trust us to fly” is their motto.

   I went on down to their office bringing the usual paperwork, plus a copy of a newspaper article explaining the financial compensation which entitled him to a double refund.

   Not surprisingly, BA didn’t want to pay it. However, their reason did: they didn’t know about it, and there was “no procedure” for paying more than a full refund.

   As the compensation scheme has been going for nine months and Batavia Air was the first to pay compensation for a delayed flight – see comment above – this is either a lie or completely crazy.

   Anyway, after much pleading (because other flights were way more expensive) the staff at BA agreed to book tickets on the cheapest alternative flight with another airline – Express Air – and pay for the difference in price themselves.