Congratulations, Valuair. You're now just as shitty as the next shitty budget airline.
Anything is possible, and that includes getting jetlagged upon returning from... Singapore. ...which is pretty much on the same timezone as Jakarta. How the heck, you say? Such is the epic failure of Valuair.
Sadly, I think I have been a pretty frequent flyer of Valuair. For sudden trips to Singapore, the only airline that could accomodate a purchase (in a decent price) the night before without having to pick up a phone or lug your ass to a sales office is Valuair. Such is why I always pick Valuair for my impromptu trips to Singapore, even if they are slightly more expensive than the likes of Lion Air or AirAsia---which puts them somewhere in the "high-end budget" vicinity---but in my eyes they've held a pretty reliable image as a so-called "budget airline". Well, that reputable image was instantly shattered in one incident last night that I could only describe in two simple and pretty much self-explanatory words:
FUCKED. UP.
I understand that flying budget airlines means that there is a chance that the many horror stories out there about flying budget airlines might happen to you, but honestly, I expected a little bit more out of Valuair. And after this 11-hour delay fiasco, they just bought themselves a one way ticket straight to the bottom of the pit.
What pisses me off the most is the unprofessionalism of Valuair to communicate to their passengers. @Nikos150's flight was at 15:40. He tweeted that his Valuair flight VF503 was already making its move on the apron when they returned to park due to technical problems with the plane. Assuming that there's only one aircraft used for the SIN-CGK-SIN route, I knew it would pose a backlog that would snowball straight into my flight, VF505 leaving at 20:20. So, the first question I asked when I got to the check-in desk was whether or not the flight will leave as scheduled. The answer was yes. Okay, thank God, I suppose, and I proceeded to complete my pre-boarding errands, such as getting my GST refunds. As I was rushing to my gate from the long lines of the GST refund at 20:00, I passed by a screen and saw that my flight was no longer at 20:20, but it has been retimed to 23:45. Oh, fudge. But I didn't think much about it, and went to find the nearest World Cup broadcast.
At 23:00, I was ready to head to the boarding gate. I checked the screen, and sighed in relief when I saw it still said 23:45. Went to the restroom, and came out 5 minutes later to find the dreaded word "RE-TIMED" on my flight screen. It's been re-timed to 03:10 this time.
That is just UNCOOL. Seriously, if they had just told us that they're leaving at 03:10 in the first place, I could've still exited the airport and WENT HOME. Except that it's midnight now, I don't have my house keys, and my very old grandparents were probably asleep. This is what pissed me off THE MOST about the whole ordeal. Valuair wasn't being fair to their paying customers about the truth. I can't blame the ground staff, as they are merely liaisons, but I blame THE CORPORATION and their intolerable inconsideration to people's lives and situations.
Things were heating up in the boarding gate. Obviously, after two re-times with no real explanation of what's going on, passengers are starting to get restless and are demanding answers. In the heat of an argument, a young Valuair representative at the boarding gate slipped out a Chinese swear word under his breath, possibly thinking that we Indonesians wouldn't understand it. And that's when things got ugly.
This whole time, no person of authority was present at the site. I feel sorry for the staff at the boarding gate because they're really just doing their jobs and not being a person of actual authority, it's hard for them to deal with all the angry passengers without having any viable information to pass on. I feel really sorry for them because they took the most heat from the angry passengers.
Finally, a manager appeared at midnight, and he assured us that they're getting an entirely different plane flown over (the information floating around was that it is the Medan route plane) and we'd be able to fly off at 03:10. And I thought to myself... I have a very bad feeling about this... but what I wanted at that moment was just to GO HOME. Honestly, I had no problems getting out of this mess and checking in to the nearest airport, which was the Crowne Plaza Changi at T3, which also was available. But the thing is, I JUST WANNA GO HOME, and I don't wanna miss the next available flight.
03:30, manager took the intercom. I knew it was bad news the minute he said his first word. Apparently, the plane is available and ready to go, except that under Singapore Government safety regulations, they weren't able to find an operational crew that hasn't been so overtimed that it would be illegal to force them to operate one more flight. The next batch would only be available for us to fly off at 07:00.
And right there is what pissed me off the most. Being airport operatives, there is NO WAY that they did not know about this so-called inavailability of an operational crew. It was a 03:10 flight, way over civilized hours, and Mr. Manager probably already knew by midnight that they couldn't fly until 07:00. But why wasn't he upfront with us? I don't know if it's Mr. Manager who's a big bad douche, or if he's executing instructions from the bigger douches over at Valuair HQ, but the only logical explanation for it is that Valuair was buying time to prevent them from having to compensate the entire flight of passengers with hotel accomodations. See, if Mr. Manager had informed everyone at midnight that the earliest the flight could depart was at 07:00, at 7 hours prior to departure, the entire flight would've demanded hotel accomodations. But at 03:30, being only less than 4 hours prior to departure time, only about a quarter of the passengers decided to demand compensation for hotel accomodations and rescheduled their flight to another more civilized time.
What about the rest of us? Well, they took us to a transit lounge, where we're supposedly covered only for free seats and a warm shower, but not for food or drinks. ARE YOU KIDDING ME, VALUAIR? More yelling and fists slamming on table tops ensued at the transit lounge, and it ain't pretty. But I'm just saying, compensating for food and drinks is a very small cost to pay as opposed to flushing your company's image further down the drain. Poorly played, Valuair. Very poorly played.
And 11 hours later, we finally flew back to Jakarta at 07:00. Sure, you can tell me again that such risks come standard with flying a budget airline, but seriously? NO WAY. This audacity is unacceptable, especially because I paid a last minute ticket price that is probably equivalent to a Garuda flight, which is NOT a budget airline. What even worse? For 150USD more, I could've flown on Singapore Airlines.
Mr. Manager actually told us that we would all be compensated 200 DOLLARS (which I'm not even sure if he's talking in terms of SGD or USD) in Valuair ELECTRONIC VOUCHERS, to be redeemed on the next Valuair flight, valid for 6 months, transferrable to anyone. Yeah, the problem is, Mr. Manager... I don't think anyone on this flight would have the right mind to actually FLY VALUAIR EVER AGAIN. A 3 hour delay might still pass for a "normal" budget airline risk. 6 hours is pushing it. But 11 FUCKING HOURS? That's your death sentence. You just lost a frequent flyer who often speaks highly of you wherever I go. I WILL NEVER FLY YOU AGAIN. EVER. Yeah... congratulations, Valuair. You're now just as shitty (if not shittier) as your next friendly neighborhood shitty budget airline.
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