Garuda Indonesia dealing with its corruption problems

Indonesia’s national carrier, Garuda Indonesia has been in economic difficulties for a while. The government has bailed them out before, and they still have much debt. I’ve flown on Garuda many times and think they are a decent airline, despite my dramas with them in London.

As national carrier they get new planes, attentive flight staff, good pilots and decent maintenance. BaliDiscovery reports that a corruption scandal is the latest thing Garuda has had to deal with. Apparently staff were selling tickets, on the Guam–Bali–Surabaya route in US$, then forcing a refund in rupiah. As anyone who has bought a ticket in Bali knows, the prices are in US$, if you can’t pay in US$, you get charged the ‘airline exchange rate’, which is way out whack. Staff were pulling the old ‘bait and switch’ routine, doing the reverse conversion, and keeping the difference.

According to BaliDiscovery’s article, as well as the ticketing scam, Garuda has other major corruption issues, involving cargo, employee’s welfare foundation and the buying of new jets. Apart from that they’re totally clean.