InVinoVeritas

Indonesian immigration scores another own goal:-

'Sort it out!': AirAsia passengers stuck in Bali after string of delays

Davita

Good post IVV and a very good reason for the Australian Govt. to revoke Air Asia X Berhad's operating permit to fly in/out of Australia....unless those passengers are adequately compensated.

The post heading "Indonesian immigration scores another own goal" is misleading.
The problem occurred with Air Asia X Berhad...a Malaysian registered airline (Iata code D7). The A/C, crew and airline policies have nothing to do with Indonesia.

Indonesian Air Asia (Iata code QZ) is a separate Company and Indonesia, as a sovereign state, dictates its own immigration policy, as does Australia.

InVinoVeritas

My understanding is that immigration forced the flight to de-plane because 3 passengers were missing from the manifest but who had in fact, already flown out. Immigration really should have known that.

The fact they made everybody buy on-arrival visas doesn't play very well either.

Davita

1. Try getting any A/C out of Australia when 3 passengers on the Passenger List don't show....all baggage will be removed and inspected before the A/C is cleared to depart. It's the airlines responsibility to find its passengers, not Immigration.

2. Australian citizens still have to pay US$35 for visa on arrival (VOA)...all do. If there were other qualified for free VOA nationals on board they would be given free VOA. The alternate is to stay in transit.
This is the airline's responsibility not Indonesian Immigration. Air Asia X Berhad should compensate its passengers....it's their duty.

I'm not condoning what Indonesia did but 'dems the rules and Australia believes in rules...right!!!

Much like the OZ navy paid some Indonesian fishermen to take Sri Lankan refugees back to Indonesia when they were already in Australian waters...Indonesian captain makes US$32,000 deal to return asylum seekers, court hears | Australia news | The Guardian

Australia also keeps Indonesian children in an adult prison..... and now deporting back a child from a Nauru refugee camp that was scalded with boiling water....Doctors refuse to discharge refugee toddler amid fears she will be deported

I'm all for identifying and acknowledging blame but hypocrisy doesn't play very well either.

Pollyana

That really is shocking -wonder what they would have done if some of the passengers had turned out to be not eligible for on-arrival visas?

InVinoVeritas

I don't suppose the 3 passengers bothered telling Air Asia X therefore only Indonesian immigration would have known. I agree Air Asia X doesn't come out of it at all well.

Davita

They would stay in transit...didn't you see the movie 'The Terminal' with Tom Hanks....based on a reality where some stateless guy stayed in Paris airport transit from 1988-2006.

InVinoVeritas

As did Julian Assange in Moscow airport, if I remember rightly.

Davita

I think you mean Edward Snowdon....Julian Assange is holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London.

InVinoVeritas

Ah yes, clearly my alcholic brain decay is more advanced than yours

Pollyana

No, I've read the book though, interesting it was too

Keeping them in transit would probably be more acceptable to most of them than spending $$ on a visa they don't want!

Davita

I'm now teetotal...at least since last Sunday when they pumped me out with Fleet phospho-soda so they could stick this Canon camera with tele-photo lens up my rectum till it got blocked....I think they call it a Colonoscopy.

And the doctor didn't even buy me flowers for Valentine after being so intimate....