Other Asian, Australian and South Pacific Frequent Flyer Programs - Kal Star Aviation?

Anybody flown the Indonesian domestic carrier Kal Star Aviation? What kind of a reputation do they have for safety and service reliability?

They fly ATR's, 733's and a 735, and have apparently been in business since 2000, which is all good... but they don't have that many planes so IRROPS could get dicey.

They fly between Java and Borneo on a couple of routes we want to use on an upcoming trip.

As this is discussion about an airline, it has been relocated to the proper forum. Thanks!

/JDiver, Senior Moderator

Kal Star / KLS is on the Aviation Black List, as established by the European Commission and the FAA, as of 8th April, 2009, according to this list (http://www.1001crash.com/index-page-liste_noire-lg-2.html), and rated category 2 by Indonesian Civil Aviation Authority.

You might want to rethink using Kal Star until you have done further research? At least that way, it will be more of an informed decision.

Black List

True, but there are lots of airlines on the two black lists and many people fly them daily without incident - and what interest would an Indonesian domestic carrier have in flying to Europe in any event?

Hopefully there are some FT'ers on the ground in SE Asia who have had some experiences, know the local information, etc.

I am a travel agent in Indonesia. I should point out that I haven't flown Kal-Star myself, but I have booked tickets for our clients and this is what we have experienced with them.

- Kal-Star used to only fly short routes around Kalimantan (the Indonesian side of the island of Borneo). More recently, they have branched out to flights between the larger cities of Java (e.g. Jakarta, Semarang, Surabaya) and Kalimantan.

- Their new website:
http://www.kalstaronline.com/ibe/search.asi?ibeLanguage=en
is a vast improvement on previous versions, but (like most of its competitors) only accepts Indonesian credit cards for online bookings.

- Until recently, Kal-Star also didn't have e-tickets, which was a problem for our mostly international clientele. If they were staying in Bali or Jakarta first, we could courier the paper tickets to their Indonesian hotel, otherwise it was not possible.

- Kal-Star's Boeing 737 flights have a 20kg baggage allowance, while on their ATR42 flights it is 10kg.

Our experience is that Trigana Air ( http://www.trigana-air.com/html/module.php ) has a greater choice of flights to/in Kalimantan and is a more reliable airline.

You can read more about flights to/around Kalimantan here:
http://flights.indonesiamatters.com/2120-pangkalan-bun-flights/
It focuses on flights to Pangkalan Bun, the nearest airport to the Camp Leakey orangutan sanctuary and Tanjung Puting National Park.

By the way, there is a comparison of the merits of different Indonesian airlines here:
http://flights.indonesiamatters.com/which-airline/
It also includes which airlines are/aren't permitted to fly in EU airspace.