Fly in Indonesia, Get $

Jan 1st, 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.