T

he Transportation Ministry has suspended several routes flown by low-cost carrier Lion Air following the airline'€™s massive delays in recent days that left hundreds of passengers stranded at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport.

Suprasetyo, the director general for air transportation at the ministry, said the ministry also halted its review into new routes being proposed by the airline.

He stated the ministry would not revoke Lion Air'€™s overall permits because the airline did not commit serious violations.

The decision was made because Lion Air failed to provide its passengers with compensation immediately after the delays.

'€œThe airline does not have a problem with safety and emergency standard operating procedures, but we see that it failed in terms of service standards,'€ he told a press conference on Monday.

Suprasetyo said the ministry was still reviewing Lion Air'€™s standard operating procedure for services so it could decide whether to suspend a number of Lion Air'€™s active routes.

Transportation Ministerial Regulation No. 77/2011 on air transportation providers'€™ responsibilities stipulates that an airline is required to refund the ticket price and passenger service charge and pay Rp 300,000 (US$23.2) in compensation.

Last Friday, Lion Air canceled all flights scheduled to depart Soekarno-Hatta International Airport between 5 p.m. and midnight amid delays to hundreds of flights with around 2,000 passengers affected since Wednesday night.

The situation was worsened by the fact that Lion Air was unable to pay refunds to thousands of passengers stranded at the airport, saying that no staff were available and no banks were open on Thursday during the Chinese New Year holiday.

Lion Air general affairs director Edward Sirait said the airline only had Rp 1.5 billion in cash at the airport, which he said was insufficient to pay all the passengers.

Due to the absence of Lion Air staff during the chaos, state-owned airport operator PT Angkasa Pura II (AP II) decided to begin the refund process for passengers on Friday morning, allocating around Rp 4 billion from its own coffers.

AP II spokesperson Achmad Syahir said that up until Friday night, the airport operator had only disbursed Rp 526 million in refunds to around 500 passengers. On Sunday, AP II confirmed that Lion Air had repaid the loan.

On Monday, Lion Air Group director of airports Capt. Daniel Putut Kuncoro Adi said the airline did not have financial problems, despite it borrowing money from Angkasa Pura to pay ticket refunds.

'€œI can assure you that we don'€™t have any problem in terms of finance and we routinely report to the Transportation Ministry. Regarding our aircraft maintenance, it is important to note that we have 100 planes, so it is ordinary to have small technical problems on a daily basis,'€ he said.

According to Suprasetyo, the airline had failed to provide information regarding flight delays to passengers '€” a service standard required of every airline '€” saying '€œthere is no one in its management appointed as person in charge to decide or provide information on the ground'€.

Currently, a special team recently setup by the ministry is reviewing the incident.

Several of Lion Air'€™s routes being suspended for 21 days are, however, to be flown less frequently by the airline, including Makassar (South Sulawesi)-Jayapura (Papua).

'€œAs an example, a route is regarded as less frequent if Lion has five flights scheduled but only operates four. We will not allow the airline to operate the remaining one,'€ Suprasetyo said at a press conference on Monday.