My First Experience Flying Super Air Jet (Lion Group)

Just sharing (not complaining) experience first time flying #superairjet

Jakarta to Bali on Wednesday, May 31, 2023

1. Different boarding gate info between the printed one on the ticket and information display board/TV. While confirming this to the staff at the boarding gate, no certain answer was provided. He just said "just wait for the announcement" without any sorry expression.
2. The information board said "boarding" but actually the flight was delayed.
3. The constant announcements heard was "we are sorry to announce that the flight no ... is delayed...".
4. The boarding room was packed with passengers who were waiting for the delayed flight. To quote the announcement: "don't leave the boarding room too far...".
5. Passengers shouting to the ground staff were happening from time to time. Apparently, for the staff, it is a "business as usual". No sorry expression, no effort to handle the complaint except providing standard answer: "wait for further announcement". I heard one passenger shouting "hey, I am talking to you, please respond".
6. The boarding gate can be changed from minute to minute. So, seeing passengers running around was a normal scene.
7. (According to regulation), because of the long delay time, an airline has to provide compensation to passengers (meal). When this took place, no ticket controlled. Any passenger can take the meal.
8. We were lucky our flight was delayed "only" for 45 minutes. Many passengers told us their flight was delayed for more than 2-4 hours and still have no definite info when is the departure time.
9. When we arrived in Bali at 11 pm, we heard a group of angry passengers arguing with the ground staff. This is the quote "we bought a 4 pm flight but it was delayed to 8 pm. And now, our baggage is missing. Even God will get angry"
10. In Bali, according to the sign, our baggage can be picked at conveyor belt no 5, but suddenly baggages from our flight were coming out from belt no. 4. After a while, the rest of our flight baggages were coming out from belt no. 5....and we were so relieved ours were there. Phew!

Bali (back) to Jakarta on Sunday, Jun 4, 2023

1. Delayed by approximately 2.5 hours.
2. According to the captain announcement in the plane, the delay was caused by "heavy traffic in Ngurah Rai Airport Denpasar Bali". Well, although it was true that the airport was busy that day, but -in my humble opinion- it was not the major cause of the delay. On 12.45 (our original boarding time, the departure time should be 13.15 Denpasar time), I asked the ground staff and he mentioned that "just stand by here and wait for further announcement. The aircraft is not available yet, it just flew from Jakarta to Denpasar".
3. This is the funniest and our first time experience travel with airline :D. Upon the arrival to Jakarta and the aircraft was perfectly parked, the captain announced "flight attendance, the door may be opened", but..... nothing happened, because the passengers' stair was not in place yet. It took about 10 minutes to arrange this.
4. Segmentation in marketing is a real thing. At Denpasar airport, the departure gate 1-2 are mostly used by big full board airline such as Garuda Indonesia, while gate 5-6 are mostly used by budget flight. Believe it or not, the passengers' behavior are different. The toilet (rest room) at gate 1-2 are cleaner, the users are more polite/manner and que as it should be. The opposite happened at gate 5-6 toilet. It is dirtier, people are more rude and cutting que without permission. (Now, another funniest thing and my first time experience). In Jakarta's airport, it happened in a male toilet. A passenger of Super Air Jet was throwing tissue into a hand dryer machine... Hahahaha......

Lessons learnt

Well...since we had managed our expectations when trying this airline, this was -actually- a fun experience: watching passengers behaviors and how a company manages its business. A lot of marketing and lessons learnt. One of them: "if you want to learn what should not happen in service marketing, try flying this airline".

So, if you decide to fly this airline, prepare yourself to:

1. Deal with unknown departure time.
2. Have a full attention to every announcement, because the boarding time & gate can change unexpectedly.
3. Get used to be in the middle of a crowd for unlimited time.
4. Enjoy seeing people complaining, shouting and arguing frequently. Once in a while, also the relief expression of passengers who "finally get onboarded" (I heard a "yeayyy we finally depart").

I also recommend all marketing people -especially in service marketing- to fly this airline for learning purpose (not only observe but experience it. Buy the ticket using your own money to have the real feel of the term so called "monetary value" vs "non-monetary value"). It helps a lot in understanding market segmentation, matching services & target segment, complaint handling, corporate culture & value, etc.

-------- Have a nice & blessed day --------