Hurry Up and Wait

(1/8/2012)

Sriwijaya Air is now ranked as the Indonesian air carrier with the worst on-time performance, as measured by the government for the period July-November 2011. Meanwhile, counting from the bottom up, Lion Air registered as the  airline with the “second-worst” on-time record.

Data for the first eleven months of 2011, however, show Lion Air as holding the distinction for the Indonesian airline must likely to leave late.

National Air Carrier Garuda Indonesia has logged the best on-time performance (OTP) during the same period.

Bisnis.com reports that Sriwijaya Air managed to land their airplanes on time on only 62.31% of their scheduled flights. It was, however, a close race to be named the airline whose planes are most often late with Lion Air turning in an OTP of 62.72%.

Djoko Muratmodjo, an aviation official from the Ministry of Transportation, said: “Sriwijaya Air sunk in their OTP for Semester II of 2011 until the end of November. Moreover, in July, the airline had an OTP of 60.76%.”

He went on to say that for the entire eleven-months January-November 2011 the airline with the worst OTP was Lion Air at 66.78%. According to Djoko, delays experienced by the erring airlines average between 1-2 hours in duration.

“In order to reduce these delays the Ministry of Transportation have introduced Ministerial Decree No. 77 of 2011 on the responsibility of carriers, including compensation amounts that must be paid by airlines experiencing delays of more than four hours,” said Djoko.

The senior manager for public relations for Sriwijaya Air, Agus Soedjono, told Bisnis.com that he did not yet know the data for OTP for semester II of 2011 through the end of November. “I am still out of town, later I will look for the data,” said Agus.

Only two Indonesian air carriers are reporting OTP above 70%: Garuda Indonesia (82.51%) and Batavia Air (73.95%). Airlines operating at OTP levels below 70% are given official “red cards” by the Ministry of Transportation with the implied threat that a continuing failure to improve performance could result in suspension of operating licenses.