INDONESIA’s civil aviation authority has frozen ground handling operations for Lion Air at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport and Indonesia AirAsia at Ngurah Rai International Airport for five days as of May 17.
The sanction was given after another passenger mishandling took place at Bali’s airport on Monday night, when one of the three transit buses ferrying passengers of AirAsia QZ509, which flew in from Singapore, wrongly alighted travellers at the domestic terminal instead.
The incident took place barely one week after Lion Air’s transit bus mistakenly dropped passengers off at Jakarta airport’s domestic terminal rather than at Terminal 2.
Suprasetyo, director general of air transportation, Ministry of Transportation, said during a press conference yesterday that in addition to the operation freeze, both airlines will have to appoint new ground handling agents by the time the suspension period is over.
“(The sanction) is taken to improve airline services,” he said.
Investigations are ongoing and the government is now reviewing procedures and qualifications of existing ground handling agents in order to avoid such mishaps in the future.
Following the government sanction, Lion Air and Indonesia AirAsia issued statements yesterday, assuring the public that their air operations at both Jakarta and Bali airports will continue as scheduled.
Sunu Widyatmoko, president director of Indonesia AirAsia in the statement said: “It is our priority to make sure that (air) operations remain smooth and passenger comforts are met.
“We will continue to coordinate with related parties in terms of the investigation and will take steps to prevent such incidents from happening again.”
Edward Sirait, general affairs director of Lion Air, said: “We appeal to our passengers not to worry about the freeze as our operational activities will run as per normal.”
