Garuda Indonesia

GA 571 July 30 2014. I flew from BPN-CGK and it was two hour flight. I was going straight from Jakarta to Hamburg with Emirates. The service that I am not happy with is their baggage allowance and seat comfort. The allowance that I got was 20k while my Emirates flight I got 30k. Garuda Indonesia is supposed to be the flight that people use who are going on a connecting flight to abroad through Jakarta. If they give us only 20k I don't see any difference of Garuda Indonesia and other low-cost domestic flight e.g. Lion Air. The seat was hard and you cannot sleep throughout the flight unless you want your tailbone to hurt for the nest several days.

Jakarta - Singapore by GA830 on 19 July 14 in economy. Check in took 20 minutes because only one counter out of 3 was manned initially probably due to shift change. New crew came in after 15 minutes and check in was fast thereafter. Flight was on time. Immaculate A-330 aircraft with great seat comfort and adequate leg room. I am a GA frequent flier on domestic routes and was flying an international route after 5 or 6 years. Quick but attentive service on this short route. I had requested Asian vegetarian food and was pleasantly surprised to be served good Indian food that would have done any Indian carrier proud. Overall a very pleasant experience.

Flew on 26th July from Jakarta to Haneda and back to Jakarta on 4th Aug. Flight was delayed for 2 hours from Jakarta due to operational issues and change of plane. Arrived in Tokyo the early in the morning at 1 am. Plane was old and entertainment not up to date. Flight back to Jakarta had to stand in line for almost 1.5 hours as the check-in process was very slow and only 4 Economy counter were opened. Plane was also old.

We are just finishing a 5 week trip from Sydney to London. While the aircraft flight and on board crew were all fine and the standard comparable to Etihad and Emirates we were extremely disappointed and inconvenienced by Garuda's decision to stop flying direct to London three months after we booked. Garuda would not offer any compensation or upgrade and changed our outward journey to a day later. This was not possible as we had already booked all our U.K. accommodation and so it would have thrown out our whole itinerary. To keep the same dates as per our original booking Garuda sub-contracted part of our journey with Singapore Airlines outward and Etihad homeward which meant in each case two transfers each way. Highly unsatisfactory resulting in hours of waiting around at airports. I will definitely avoid flying with Garuda in the future.

9 June 2014 I flew to my hometown Padang in business class. It was 30 minutes late from 11.25 to 12.05. I was really disappointed and the rest of the flight was just ok.

8 June 2014. I flew Garuda 89 B777-300 ER Amsterdam - Jakarta. It was excellent. FA foods and entertainment top quality.

Bali-Jakarta business. A brand new 777 for a short flight of under 2 hours. Cabin crew were very attentive and helpful and even repaired a button that I caught on the table latch. The meal was nothing special and there was no wine on board only beer.

Garuda Jakarta-AMS return business. A brand new 777 with full flat bed seats. Service by the FAs and the food and wines were all of a very high standard. Flights were boarded early and left on time although we were 30 mins late arriving on the way back. However the big problem in Garuda's new 777 configuration is the there are not enough toilets for the number of seats in business class and for the overnight sectors you can get queues as in economy.

Jakarta-Bali business. A 737 which was adequate for the length of flight. Service by the FAs was of a high standard but no alcohol was served which is marked contrast to Garuda's international sectors.

Brisbane-Bali return business. The problem with this service is that a 737 is too small for a 5-6 hour flight. The seats have good pitch for the size of aircraft but they are very old style. The business cabin was only half full on the way out but full on the ways back. The FAs were very pleasant and really did their best but the equipment was not really up to the job. Only one full meal was served and on the return overnight it turned out to be breakfast. There was no warning of this as the standard pattern for air travel is usually a meal one hour after take off and I had expected dinner. We left at 23.30 were given one small corn tartlet (nothing else) at 00.30 and breakfast at 03.15. The wines with the corn tartlet were however excellent!