Batik Air B737-900ER Economy
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at 04:58 by SimonS1.
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myspirowParticipantBatik Air is established by Lion Air Group to provide “full service” airline, a product which supposed to offer more than the existing Lion Air and wish to compete with national carrier; Garuda Indonesia as claimed by many media. However, after experiencing a flight with Batik Air, as a customer I was left confused with their product…
1/ Booking
Lion Air and Batik Air share common online booking system; flights are bookable through both airlines’ websites. However, if a passenger wished to book return trip, he/she can only book with the same carrier (e.g. despite showing all available choices of both Lion Air and Batik Air flights, one cannot mixed to travel inbound with Lion Air and return with Batik Air and vice versa). I sensed the problem is due with the insurance coverage. Lion Air offers extra optional insurance plan while Batik Air doesn’t.2/ Check-in
Batik Air and Lion Air do not share common check-in counter which is good. However, all Batik Air counters are staffed with Lion Air ground staff and boarding pass bears “Lion Air logo” in the form of flimsy paper. Garuda, in comparison as Batik Air wish to compete, use a more “upscale” boarding pass paper.3/ Baggage
This is the most troubling puzzle. Lion Air passengers enable for complimentary 20kg checked baggage while Batik Air only 15kg of free checked baggage for economy passengers.4/ Entertainment System
Each Batik Air seat is equipped with PTV in both business and economy class. However, all announcements are made manually, including a manual safety demo. It just does not make sense why an airline cannot afford to produce a 3-min safety video while it cares enough to load the TV system with movies and music.The worst thing: economy class passengers need to pay an extra Rp25,000 (USD2.50) for earphones! Cabin announcement made it clear that usage of external earphones is prohibited (despite it’s the same earphones used in common household). Why hassle promoting the airline to offer TV entertainment while passenger cannot enjoy it? Garuda, in comparison, gives free earphones to economy passengers
5/ Meal
First to start, since they’re claiming to be “full service” airline, Batik Air does not offer any special meal. Onboard, there is only 1 choice of meal. Other legacy carriers in Asia will offer at least 2 meal options for comparison. Since service is rather sloooow (despite FA only serve common meal for everyone), there is no coffee/tea service after meal.6/ Amenities
Newspaper is not offered (Garuda did offer this service), there is no barf bag on the seat (not mandatory to offer, but even Lion Air flight has this on each seat). While other airlines’ inflight magazines have the inscription of “your complimentary copy”, BATIK – the inflight magazine of Batik Air has the inscription “do not take home.” Worst, I was traveling in June, the magazine was of May edition.Overall, if Batik Air wished to compete head-to-head with Garuda, the offering is still far in comparison as I highlighted above. In fact, some of the product is better with Lion Air, its supposed “low cost” sister. The current product positioning is clearly left me confused as a passenger and did not regard my recent experience flying Batik Air as with other “full service” airlines in Asia.
15 Aug 2013
at 12:57
LeithenParticipantThank you for your feedback. We very much appreciate and welcome feedback from passengers. I spoke to the CEO of Batik Air yesterday and mentioned the points you raised and sort to clarify the situation.
Here is the situation. With Batik Air, you are able to go to the Batikair.com website and book a one-way ticket on Batik Air. If you want to book a one-way return ticket on Lion Air, then you are able to.
In terms of your question about boarding pass paper, Batik Air gives passengers a boarding pass that is branded Lion Group and then shows the logo of the airlines in the group, including Batik Air. We are currently working on the design of a new boarding pass that will be branded Batik Air.
You mentioned that Batik Air gives economy-class passengers a 15kg free check-in baggage allowance. This is not correct. It is 20kg.
At Batik Air, we have our on-board cabin crew do the safety demonstration because that is what they are trained to do. We feel it is better for our trained cabin crew to do the safety demonstration.
We do provide barf bags to both economy and business-class passengers. If there is no barf bag in the seat pouch, then our friendly cabin crew will be able to get one for you.
It is correct that passengers that wish to purchase earphones for the inflight entertainment system must pay 25,000 rupiah (US$2.20), but because you are buying the earphones you get to keep them. Also, passengers are free to use their own earphones if they wish. They don’t have to buy the earphones if they don’t wish to.
In terms of meal service, we offer a choice of meals and it is at least two choices.
If you wish to discuss things further, then I would be happy to speak with you personally. My email address is leithen.francis at lionair.co.idBest wishes,
Leithen Francis
Head of Public Relations
Lion GroupPS. If you look at Batik Air’s route network, you will see that we operate on some very long domestic sectors. For example, Batik Air flies from Jakarta to Jayapura, which is the longest distance of any domestic scheduled flight in Indonesia. We are finding that our passengers are really enjoying the extra comfort level and inflight services on board our Batik Air aircraft, which are brand new 737-900ERs. Our economy-class seat pitch is 32in and our business class seat pitch is 45in. This is more than many other full-service carriers. We also provide back-of-seat inflight entertainment and many other benefits. So I encourage you to book your next flight on Batik Air.
28 Aug 2013
at 06:15
TominScotlandParticipantSimonS1 – I think the point about a Lion Air one way ticket as a return option for a Batik Air outbound is a very clear response to the original post.
I doubt that spell checking would have helped in the case of the selection of a wrong word (try it for yourself!!) but IMHO the English grammar and spelling are no worse here than that of many posters (native English speakers) to this site (check out the misuse of their and there as a constant abuse of the language by BT posters) and is far better than my written Bahasa Indonesia – maybe yours is better?
29 Aug 2013
at 03:22
SimonS1ParticipantTom – as Leithen Francis is an English speakerI am not sure what you are going on about. If a Head of PR comes on a forum to defend his company then I would say getting the grammar right is quite key. Not exactly a casual poster, is he.
No he didn’t answer the question either. The question was why you couldn’t book a return ticket with one leg on each airline as they are part of the same group. The reply was you can book two single tickets.
Still with their safety record (I believe they are still banned from European airspace) I wouldn’t touch anything connected with Lion Air with a bargepole.
29 Aug 2013
at 04:58 -
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