I agree with PakThomas, GA is actually a good move because it gives ST more south east asian hubs now that was sorely lacking in ST before.
Originally Posted by
PakThomas
I lived in Yogyakarta for 15 years with my family. We've flown Garuda many, many times, both domestically and internationally. It wasn't bad at all, and I understand they've improved significantly over the last couple of years. They were very useful for redemption from Indonesia since they often had award availability and you could connect to NW and their other partners at many points outside of Indonesia (SIN, BKK, KUL, HKG, NRT, etc.). The other cool thing was that I could redeem miles from LAX to CGK or DPS on another airline, and then add on the flight to JOG for no extra miles (I never paid more than 60,000 miles, and I redeemed 15-20 award tickets of this type). Usually this resulted in Garuda waiving the usual domestic overweight charges since the flight was considered to be a continuation of the international itinerary and our bags were tagged all the way from LAX to JOG.
This will be a good thing for people traveling on ST carriers to Indonesia. Yes, safety is an issue when traveling to Indonesia, but flying is still a whole lot safer than other modes of travel (particularly in Indonesia). The problem isn't really so much with Garuda (which, together with the new Mandala is the best of the bunch in Indonesia), but with the entire transportation infrastructure in that country.
^
Originally Posted by
mnredfox
DL seems to be on a roll with adding Asian carriers. Let's see, recent addition (or in process):
Vietnam
MU
CI
Garuda
In all, this is good news as it gives more options at "low"...
I knew about that but I didn't want to quote it because I don't know if safety is factored into Skytrax, but as far as I know EU isn't banning GA anymore since last year.
It is funny though that Japan and Korea would let GA fly into their airports but not the EU?
Originally Posted by
Supersonic Swinger
That would make every US legacy carrier fourth rate. Garuda is rated 4 stars by Skytrax, more than any US airline. And from my experience, the relative ranking is deserved, the fat girl prom dates in the alliances definitely include the US carriers.
But then some people probably prefer having flight crew who personally knew Orville and Wilbur Wright serving you complimentary water while trying to sell you branded credit cards.