At about 6:10 a.m. on Sept. 10, I stood in front of Silk Air desk at terminal two, checking in at Changi Airport in Singapore. My brother and I unloaded one big box and four big bags from our two trolleys while our nurse was looking after our 76-year-old father, who was in his wheelchair.
The lady at the desk told me that she couldn't let my father fly home to Solo, Indonesia on Silk Air flight MI 212 at 07:55 a.m. When I asked the reason, her duty manager said that my father looked sick as he couldn't sit upright in his wheelchair. I explained my father was still sleepy as he had woken up early, at 5.00 a.m.
The Silk Air manager said he needed a doctor's reference letter informing him that my father was fit to fly. I explained we had been flying to and fro between Singapore and Solo with Silk Air since my dad had a stroke 10 years ago and that my dad's neurologist and cardiologist had never given me such a letter for his flights.
My dad is fit and healthy. He only takes anti-hypertension and aspirin tablets. The duty manager repeated that airport regulations did not allow a sick person to fly so, to prove whether or not my father was sick, we asked him to bring the airport doctor to check our father.
The manager said the only doctor available was in terminal three, but to take our father there was impossible as we were so short of time.
To save precious time, I made two emergency calls to my father's neurologist and cardiologist. I explained the problem and asked them to fax a reference letter to the airport.
They were unable to do so, however, as they were still at home, but they did talk to the duty manager one after another. But they both failed.
It seemed that we had to take the next flight, scheduled on Sept. 12, which meant my father would suffer in Singapore for two more days, sitting in his wheelchair, the reason why I was insisting on flying home that morning.
On Sept. 12, 2009 I gave the doctor's letter to the Silk Air crew and the four of us flew home to Solo, ending my father's two extra days of depression, which the hotel voucher from Silk Air did nothing to alleviate.
Next time we go to Singapore we expect a professional airport service with an understanding heart, not a steel one.
Tjong Lio Ie
Yogyakarta
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