Lion Air

Flew from DPS to Yogyakarta. Early morning flight boarding and take off on time. Smooth flight on a new B737. Requested exit row seat and was allocated this.

Lion Air (operated by Wings Air) Flight from Bali to Lombok was cancelled and then delayed for 6 hours. Check in and boarding processes were chaotic. Information updates were either non existent met with shrugs or told anything to keep us "satisfied". Similar experience on return flight but only 3.5 hours late. Avoid these two airlines at all costs.

Booked KUL-CGK route back in January 24th. Been flying with this airline numerous times before but this was the first international flight. A few hours before my flight I decided to reschedule to Jan 25th due to some inevitable matters in KL then I tried to call the local customer centre number. I managed to reschedule without much hassles certainly with some additional fees (to be paid at the airport). The following day I checked in at Lion Air kiosk in the airport paid the fees and got my boarding pass. It is evidently cheaper than the infamous low-cost carrier Air Asia in some routes. Also worth noting that being a low cost carrier in KUL Lion Air - unlike Air Asia and several others - remains a few (if not the only one) of its kind to land in KLIA satellite terminal (NOT LCCT) means it is accessible more conveniently from KL City Centre.

Flew CGK to PAD on 29 January 2013. Terminal 1 departure. Terminal is old and has little to offer. Hot and humid only departure area is AC but has far too few seats and was cramped noisy and chaotic. Flight was delayed for almost 2 hours and no announcements were made. Flight even disappeared from the information board. Airline officials offered very little assistance and only told us to wait. Finally a stampede of rushing people as sign of boarding and also this time no announcement. No English information provided. Plane was new 737-800. Seats cramped but felt new. In my few very poor service. Its cheap but it comes with a lot of suffering.

KUL-CGK-KUL. Excellent flight. The trip was smooth. As I am tall I always like to ask for the aisle seat or the emergency seats. I always get my request. 3 times/day schedules which suits me fine. The airline leaves from KLIA proper not from the low cost terminal in Malaysia.

Flew LOP-DPS-CGK 8th Jan. Arrived LOP at 12 for flight - delayed 2.5 hours no announcement or reason given. Told my bag would be transferred in DPS to go direct to CGK. Land in DPS 15.00 for my CGK flight at 15.00 run to check in desk - flight delayed until 15.20. Explain I have an international Qatar flight to Doha at 18.25 told my bag was made priority to come off first and ground staff would be there to assist me when I landed. Land at 15.00 in terminal 3 need to get to terminal 2. No one waiting to assist me another 6 people in the same situation. Took 10 mins for several staff members to understand what's going on and help. Waited at terminal 2 for bags but never turned up. Forced to take Qatar flight without luggage. Check in your bags at your own risk.

DPS-CGK. Departure hall at DPS was very chaotic due to the construction of the new airport. Lion Air ground staff very unorganized. Seats were narrow with literally no legroom whatsoever and I am only 5 ft 9. We did not have any other options on this route due to high season but I would have flown to SIN or other destination and then reach Jakarta instead. They have newer aircraft's in their fleet several Boeing 737-900ER so overall cabin was still very clean. That would be the only plus I can summarize from my experience.

Arrived to the airport for check in with Lion Air we needed some assistance with the visa process for Vietnam and we were basically told there was nothing that we could do but miss our flight and try to switch our flight to another time. We decided to do some research ourselves when we realized there was a way to catch our original timed flight. The crew members were extremely rude and didn't want to help us resolve our problem. Once we figured things out for ourselves and then ran to board the plane we found out the flight was delayed 2.5 hours. The lack of customer service and disorganization has made us lose any hope we had in flying with Lion Air.

Flew on Lion Air both legs Surabaya-Jakarta-Surabaya. Both flights were on time even early. For me whose height 180 cm Lion Air's seat pitch was not that bad comfortable enough. Check-in staff were fast and friendly. I did city check in. Since they have a large number of flights to almost all Indonesian cities and a high frequencies on their routes I will strongly recommend to fly on Lion Air for domestic trip.

Have used Lion Air several times on domestic flights. It's a budget airline so cheap prices. Facilities as you'd might expect are quite standard for low cost carrier: no onboard complimentary meals no IFE cramped seat pitch (unless for several seats along the emergency exits) narrow aisles and needless to say chaotic upon boarding and unboarding as it is often full. Flight itself sometimes experiences delays but usually departs and arrives on time. FAs in general are quite friendly. If you have a rather limited budget this airline is worth considering for travel among Indonesian cities.