Outrage on Lion Air Strike, What are the Reliable Indonesian Airlines?
The spotlights are again turned on low-cost carrier Lion Air, Indonesia's largest privately-held airline that controls about 40 percent of the air passenger market in Indonesia. The airline, owned by Rusdi Kirana (one of the richest Indonesians), has again disappointed thousands of passengers due to delayed flights. This time flight delays were caused by Lion Air pilots going on strike. It is worth to zoom in on this case and to take a look at which Indonesian airlines are most reliable in terms of departure punctuality.
Around 300 pilots of Lion Air went on strike on Tuesday (10/05) - leaving thousands of passengers stranded for hours across eight Indonesian airports (the strike affected 58 Lion Air flights) - over the delayed payment of pilots' travel expenses (these expenses should have been paid between 4 and 9 May 2016). Although the strike ended around 11 am local Jakarta time as the Lion Air management announced it had transferred pilots' accommodation allowance, the action still caused the delay of flights until the afternoon. It is interesting that in local media the management of Lion Air denies that there was a strike. Edward Sirait, Director of Lion Air, was quoted "delays occurred because some Lion Air crew members were sick, while others were having administrative problems."
Those airports affected - where air passengers had to wait several hours - include I Gusti Ngurah Rai Airport (Bali), Adisutjipto Airport (Yogyakarta), Sam Ratulangi Airport (Manado), Sultan Hasanuddin Airport (Makassar), and Lombok International Airport.
The strike caused outrage among air passengers, state-owned airport operator Angkasa Pura as well as consumer organizations, and put significant pressure on the management of Lion Air. Tulus Abadi, Chairman of the Indonesian Consumer Protection Foundation (YLKI), advised the Indonesian Transportation Ministry to issue a warning or impose a penalty on Lion Air (for example temporarily disallowing Lion Air to add new routes and flights until the airlines' services have improved).
It is not the first time Lion Air causes negative headlines in media. In 2015 more than 2,000 Lion Air passengers were left stranded between 18 and 20 February at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport due to flight delays. Thousands more were stranded at other airports. This incident went largely unexplained by the management of Lion Air.
In 2015 there were 68.8 million air passengers in Indonesia. Most of these passngers use low-cost airlines such as Lion Air, Indonesia AirAsia, Citilink Indonesia, and Sriwijaya Air. Lion Air is Indonesia's leading low-cost airline with 113 aircraft in operation. The airline operates 126 destinations (including 100 domestic destinations).
In Indonesia flight delays are rampant. However, some airlines are much more reliable in terms of departure punctuality compared to others. See the table below (a figure of 100 percent means all flights departed on time):
Departure Punctuality of Indonesian Airlines:
| Airline | 2014 | 2015 |
| Batik Air | 90.78% | 92.12% |
| NAM Air | 92.92% | 91.80% |
| Garuda Indonesia | 88.52% | 87.62% |
| Sriwijaya Air | 83.02% | 84.79% |
| Indonesia AirAsia Extra | - | 82.40% |
| Citilink Indonesia | 78.20% | 81.78% |
| Indonesia AirAsia | 78.67% | 81.11% |
| Kalstar Aviation | 65.30% | 75.63% |
| Transnusa | 54.41% | 74.82% |
| Wings Air | 71.12% | 72.05% |
| Lion Air | 73.80% | 71.45% |
| Susi Air | - | 60.97% |
| Travel Express | 86.30% | 57.40% |
| Trigana Air | 62.91% | 56.12% |
Source: Bisnis Indonesia