dirktraveller From Singapore, joined Jan 2011, 207 posts, RR: 0 Posted (10 months 1 week 6 days 22 hours ago) and read 9849 times:
Dear all,
After being a silent reader of trip reports in this forum for the past three years, I've decided maybe its time for me to contribute one. Well, since this is my first trip report, I hope you all bear with me on this one, and also to note I did not come from an English speaking background, so my apologies if I do lack in vocabularies to describe my flying experience. Hopefully you enjoyed the report. Thanks.
Background
Being my home country's flag carrier, I flew a lot on board Garuda Indonesia flights, especially on their domestic and regional flights. Nonetheless since I was based in Australia currently, this gives me an opportunity to try Garuda's medium haul service, especially a few years after the Quantum Leap programme on the airline has started. I was so excited on my first longer flights with Garuda Indonesia!
Check-in and Boarding - Tullamarine Airport Melbourne, 07.55
I reached the airport using the convenient 'Skybus' from the Southern Cross terminal in Melbourne city area. The international departures check-in area were extremely crowded with people checking in for GA, SQ, CZ, and QF flights. While there are around eight desks serving both GA departures from Melbourne, one to DPS and the other one is mine to CGK, queues were still long. Situations were exactly the same on customs and security check. In fact, departure were pushed back for 25 minutes due to passengers unable to complete immigration in time, as a result of the long queues.
Flight Details
Flight Number :GA 717
Type of aircraft :Airbus A330-341
Registration :PK-GPA (delivered 21/11/1996 to Garuda Indonesia as msn 138)
Well, these are the seat and legroom I have throughout my journey
Blanket, pillow, and amenity kit for the 6 hour 45 minutes journey.
Safety video were displayed upon pushback. its on the 'how to use your seatbelt' part.
Inflight Entertainment System (IFE)
In my opinion it was a decent IFE for a 7-hours flight with good choices of music and games, but I find it lacking in newly released, or at least recently released movies compared to other carrier. However, having this standard of an IFE its a good progress for Garuda under its 'Quantum Leap' project.
Meal services
Meal services on this flight consisted of peanuts and a choice of drink that was served after take-off, continued by hot meals and drinks of choice served around 2 hours after take-off. Throughout the flight a bottle of mineral water was distributed to keep passenger hydrated. Prior to landing, passengers were served mango ice cream. I was impressed that GA distributed paper menu and even welcome drink (packs of orange juice) in Economy class considering many airlines no longer do that as part of cost-cutting.
An exclusive look : The Garuda Indonesia 'Executive Class' seats on A330
While we're flying over northern Australia, I asked the purser's permission if I was allowed to snap some pictures of the executive class cabin, and he permitted me to go to J class cabin and snap some pics. In fact, he asked his subordinates to explain the features of the seat and demonstrated its use to me. What a nice gesture to aviation/travelling enthusiasts like all of us.
After I finished taking pics of Executive class cabin, I returned to my seat for a short nap before it was already time for descent and landing into Soekarno Hatta Airport in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Immigration in Jakarta was quick this time, although it was quite notorious for its long and rowdy queues. Nonetheless it was a good experience of flying onboard Garuda Indonesia to Jakarta. It was pleasure sharing it with you. If there is any suggestions I would gladly accept. Thank you.
Thanks! It is my first a-net trip report, hopefully you enjoyed it. I am also looking forward for them to reopen much of their international routes including those US services, when their 777s have been delivered.
nethkt From Thailand, joined Apr 2001, 985 posts, RR: 3 Reply 3, posted (10 months 1 week 4 days 23 hours ago) and read 7780 times:
Thank you for your report on GA!
The aircraft interior and service sounds/seems much improved.
This is maybe the reason why they climbed up so high in Skytrax ranking? lol
Paper menu and welcome drink! Wow...to GA for having both of them.
The Business class you were in, is located after door 2L/R? It's the second Business class section, correct?
Or is it just empty for the whole C cabin?
Thank you for taking time sharing this report.
net-hkt
Don't be annoyed knowing the passengers around you are non-revs and op-upgraders, be grateful for them. Life is beautifu
FlyFromMEL From Australia, joined Nov 2005, 31 posts, RR: 0 Reply 4, posted (10 months 1 week 4 days 23 hours ago) and read 7709 times:
Enjoyed reading your trip report, just like I do with all reports here (especially ones from Melbourne airport!).
Would have liked to see some photos of your decent and arrival in Jakarta as well. Maybe next time. How did Jakarta airport compare to tullamarine?
dirktraveller From Singapore, joined Jan 2011, 207 posts, RR: 0 Reply 5, posted (10 months 1 week 4 days 23 hours ago) and read 7702 times:
Thank you. Glad to be able to share my trip reports here, hopefully you enjoyed it.
From my few trips onboard GA it is certain that they are doing their best to upgrade their cabin and service. They have improved so much from how they were five years ago, especially in terms of interior. In my opinion what's left for them to improve is passenger experience on the ground. Have you flown onboard GA flights recently?
Quoting nethkt (Reply 3): The Business class you were in, is located after door 2L/R? It's the second Business class section, correct?
Or is it just empty for the whole C cabin?
Yes, you are correct, the purser gave me permission to snap the pictures on the second Business Class cabin which was located after 2L/R. Coincidentally the second J class cabin was empty at that time as well.
Quoting nethkt (Reply 3): This is maybe the reason why they climbed up so high in Skytrax ranking?
I'm sure that's one of the contributing factor, but I myself was also surprised they climbed up that high (11th position) this year.
dirktraveller From Singapore, joined Jan 2011, 207 posts, RR: 0 Reply 6, posted (10 months 1 week 4 days 22 hours ago) and read 7680 times:
Thank you.
In my opinion Tullamarine airport were better than Jakarta on some aspects, especially on cleanliness and MEL looks more well-maintained compared to Jakarta (CGK). However I felt that both airport are in over-capacity problem, have you went to CGK before? Would like to know how you think, especially about MEL.
Quoting FlyFromMEL (Reply 4): Would have liked to see some photos of your decent and arrival in Jakarta as well
Hopefully I could include some pictures of Jakarta Airport on the next installment of this trip report series. I planned to write another part on my return flight to MEL.
RJtraveller From Indonesia, joined Feb 2011, 50 posts, RR: 0 Reply 7, posted (10 months 1 week 4 days 2 hours ago) and read 7093 times:
Hi !
Nice trip report , I agree with you on the lack of new movies in the IFE as I flew with GA to CGK from AMS couple weeks ago, but overall GA has improved a lot from the past years, as skytrax named GA as 2012 best regional airline.
Overall nice trip report enjoy reading it.
Quote: Good tr and good to know the advancement Garuda has made! Can't wait for the carrier to get back to the US soil..
ME too, i think garuda will open flight to US after they recieve their B777
dirktraveller From Singapore, joined Jan 2011, 207 posts, RR: 0 Reply 8, posted (10 months 1 week 3 days 23 hours ago) and read 6974 times:
Thank you! hoped you enjoyed it.
Quoting RJtraveller (Reply 7): I flew with GA to CGK from AMS couple weeks ago
Wow, I've always wanted to fly on that flight, how was GA service from CGK to AMS? Was the load really light that has caused its frequency had to be cut?
I really hope Garuda could fly to the US soil someday, although rumours circulating that US services would come after the 777s fly into European routes like LHR or CDG.
9V-SVC From Singapore, joined Oct 2001, 1780 posts, RR: 11 Reply 11, posted (10 months 1 week 6 hours ago) and read 5980 times:
Hi Dirktraveller
Thanks for the excellent trip report.
The photos of GA's Y class offering looks great, the airline has definitely improved a lot and I can't wait to try out this airline in the near future!
Quoting IndianicWorld (Reply 13): Interesting that the J cabin was empty. I wonder how J class goes year round on this sector, or if it was a once off.
Actually its the only 2nd half of the J cabin that was empty, that means the load was around 30% only in J. I believe it was caused by temporary upgrade on the equipment from A332 (36 J seats) to A333 (42 J seats), which means more J seat. Just for additional information the Y seat was full on that flight, maybe due to the holiday season. Sincerely I really hope the route could still continue on, despite the low load in J.
IndianicWorld From Australia, joined Jun 2001, 2403 posts, RR: 0 Reply 15, posted (10 months 1 day 3 hours ago) and read 5150 times:
Quoting dirktraveller (Reply 14): Actually its the only 2nd half of the J cabin that was empty, that means the load was around 30% only in J. I believe it was caused by temporary upgrade on the equipment from A332 (36 J seats) to A333 (42 J seats), which means more J seat. Just for additional information the Y seat was full on that flight, maybe due to the holiday season. Sincerely I really hope the route could still continue on, despite the low load in J.
Thanks.
The route was recently upgraded in frequency wasn't it, up to 4 weekly? DPS is 5 weekly, meaning 2 X daily GA flights into MEL on 2 days a week.
As GA increases its route coverage again, CGK will become an even more important hub from Australia. At present, CGK would mainly be an O&D destination and some transit, whilst most of the holiday traffic heads to DPS.
dirktraveller From Singapore, joined Jan 2011, 207 posts, RR: 0 Reply 16, posted (10 months 1 day ago) and read 5003 times:
Quoting IndianicWorld (Reply 15): The route was recently upgraded in frequency wasn't it, up to 4 weekly?
Not just in terms of frequency, but the route was upgraded in terms of equipment to a 257 seater A333 (from a smaller capacity A332) between May to July 2012. But recently it was downgraded again to A332 due to technical issues which I mentioned on the other part of the TR.
Quoting IndianicWorld (Reply 15): CGK will become an even more important hub from Australia.
Well, with expansion of GA routes in the future, along with the planned expansion of CGK, I believe we could see CGK to play bigger role as a hub between Australia and Asia/Europe.
Quoting IndianicWorld (Reply 15): At present, CGK would mainly be an O&D destination and some transit, whilst most of the holiday traffic heads to DPS.
Yes, I believe you're right. Currently CGK bound passengers are mostly O&D with some smaller groups of passengers transiting in CGK to other parts of Indonesia like SUB, BPN or UPG. Thanks
allrite From Australia, joined Aug 2007, 1409 posts, RR: 3 Reply 17, posted (9 months 4 weeks 21 hours ago) and read 4500 times:
Enjoyed your first trip report thanks! What was the quality of your main meal like? Worthy of the wonderful Indonesian cuisine (inasmuch as airline food can be)?
dirktraveller From Singapore, joined Jan 2011, 207 posts, RR: 0 Reply 18, posted (9 months 4 weeks 20 hours ago) and read 4450 times:
Hello allrite
Quoting allrite (Reply 17):
Enjoyed your first trip report thanks!
Thank you very much
Quoting allrite (Reply 17): What was the quality of your main meal like? Worthy of the wonderful Indonesian cuisine (inasmuch as airline food can be)?
The meal on the MEL-CGK sector was a decent beef with rice, a common asian cuisine. The return sector meal is much more traditional indonesian, and maybe it was much better because it was served from CGK. And yes, especially on the return sector (part 3 of the trip report) it was worthy for the wonderful indonesian cuisine.
Sponsor Message: 
From Singapore, joined Jan 2011, 207 posts, 
From United States of America, joined Jan 2004, 308 posts, 
From Thailand, joined Apr 2001, 985 posts, 
From Australia, joined Nov 2005, 31 posts, 
From Indonesia, joined Feb 2011, 50 posts, 
From Belgium, joined Oct 2010, 2212 posts, 
Sponsor Message: 
Printer friendly format
