Passengers stranded in PT KAI holiday muddle

Thousands of passengers were seen stranded at stations on the outskirts of Jakarta on Monday as less trains were operating because of misunderstandings related to the Monday holiday for civil servants.

“We thought that because today was declared a holiday by the government we would see less people using trains. But it turns out we we were wrong,” a Pondok Ranji station official, who requested anonymity, said Monday as quoted by kompas.com.

Because of the misunderstanding, state railway company PT KAI halted electric train (KRL) services and only operated the economy class services on Monday.

Waskita, a stranded passenger, said he was wondering why the PT KAI management could have made such a massive error.

"Actually, this is only a small problem for them," Waskita said, adding that PT KAI management had demonstrated unprofessionalism on several occasions.

Train services were "so unreliable,” he commented.