Batik Air Pilots Falling Asleep during Flight; Consumer Rights were Violated, BPKN Says

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Advocacy Commission of the National Consumer Protection Agency (BPKN) said that consumer rights were violated when the pilot and co-pilot of Batik Air flight ID-6723 fell asleep during a flight from Kendari to Jakarta on January 25. As a result of this negligence, the Airbus A320 aircraft veered off course into the skies over Cianjur and Sukabumi.

In the by the National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT), the 32-year-old pilot and 28-year-old co-pilot both slept while on duty with 153 passengers on board.

BPKN chairman Fitrah Bukhari said the 153 passengers were deprived of their right to reach their destination on time. "Their rights as consumers were violated in the form of an inaccurate arrival time," he said in a written statement on Monday, March 11.

The passengers should have only been on the flight for 2 hours and 40 minutes. But due to the negligence of the flight crew, the travel time stretched to 3 hours and 1 minute, meaning they arrived 21 minutes later than the time stated on the ticket.

Batik Air said it had taken disciplinary actions by temporarily suspending the pilot and co-pilot in question, who are said to have fallen asleep at the same time due to fatigue.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Transportation had issued a stern warning to Batik Air. "We will launch an investigation and conduct a review on the management of night flights in Indonesia in relations to the risk of fatigue, both for the Batik Air and all flight operators," the ministry's director general of civil aviation M. Kristi Endah Murni in a written statement on Saturday, March 9.

One of the passengers aboard Batik Air ID-6723, Origa, 28, said the situation inside the plane during the flight was normal because the passengers did not know that the pilot and co-pilot were asleep. "There was no panic at all," he said when contacted on Saturday, March 9.

When the plane landed at Soekarno-Hatta Airport, Origa and the passengers still did not know that their plane had gone off course because there was no notification from either Batik Air officials or the airport.

Origa and the passengers only knew that the Batik Air plane they were on had landed 30 minutes late. They didn't know that they had just gone through a dangerous and possibly deadly incident. Origa only found out about the incident after the media reported the results of the KNKT investigation on Saturday.

NOVALI PANJI NUGROHO

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