Welcome back to my flight report!
This time I'll share my first experience on Batik Air Indonesia (ID/BTK). Founded and commenced their operation since 2013 as plan of Lion Air Group to compete with Garuda Indonesia on Full-Service airlines in Indonesia. At first, ID operated majority of Boeing 737-900ER and Boeing 737-800 on their fleet but since Lion Air Group made a big order to Airbus, Batik Air Indonesia is the first one to received Airbus aircraft in Lion Air Group which is Airbus A320-200 on 2014 since that their fleet have been dominated with Airbus A320-200 and will transferring all remaining Boeing to Batik Air Malaysia a.k.a Malindo Air (OD/MXD).
Background
So I made this trip to celebrate Eid'l Fitri with long-long national holiday and also I really want to visit my grand parents' grave. There's not too many choices for flight between Bandung (BDO) to Padang (PDG), with another circumstances that my father not so into flying from Jakarta - Soekarno-Hatta Airport (CGK) due its traffic and pr, while at that time nearly a month before the high peak of mudik season/home coming/exodus period the price went crazy for BDO-PDG with transit somewhere at PNK/BTH/PKU operated by Lion Air (JT/LNI) can reach up to 5.000.000 IDR / 346.79 USD / 297.10 EUR per pax! Usually the price 1/3 to 3/4 to that one. At the same price also we can use it to fly somewhere to HKG/BKK/BOM/PER/SIN/KUL somewhere, such a crazy option lah. Then I need to looked out some of the potential flight and yeah found this Batik Air Indonesia from HLP to PDG v.v. and Wings Air BDO to HLP v.v. with these arrangements I can save nearly 100 USD each pax :)
So here is my journey with Batik Air Indonesia:
Woke up not so early like what I used to do when flew from BDO because today's flight at around 12 pm. Bandung (BDO) to Jakarta (HLP) thru air to avoiding some traffics at Jakarta - Cikampek toll road with LRT construction, Elevated toll road construction, High Speed Rail construction, and also the mass movements of private vehicles and also intercity buses during the mudik season was crazy, so the flight between Bandung and Jakarta is really an option! As usual the flight was really short hop with flight time nearly 35-ish minutes. Apron view at Bandung Husein Sastranegara Airport and view over Bekasi City before landing at HLP
Jakarta - Halim Perdana Kusuma Airport (HLP) departure outside area, check-desks, and actually I've done the check-in process thru mobile website and printed the boarding pass at the self check-in machine outside the departure area. Anyway the machine won't ask the frequent flyer number nor the staffs at check-in desks won't ask about it lah believe me.
Boarding lounge 8 dedicated for Wings and Batik.
The seating area look pretty crowded with addition of reflection made by the ceiling, it does looks better than the previous dirty ceiling back in December Jakarta to Bandung with Wings also they've expanded the seating area lil bit more.
Peek hole, because the tinted window, its really brownish colour so this peek hole is pretty nice spot to capture outside real situation. Most of the movements of HLP is consist by Batik Air Indonesia, Citilink Indonesia, Wings, private jets, VVIP, and also military use.
FIDS. They're too lazy to put the information to full-screen, like the programming is still appear there…
Boarding Gate #8 and Boarding pass
Boarding process lil bit late as I remember. As no jetway or such all flight from HLP need to use airstair, what a great opportunity to took lots of pictures right? Just pay attention to the AVSEC and due this airport on Air Force's land we need to be more careful with those stuff. To reach the airplane its really common for Wings and Batik to use the apron bus. For full pax of ATR 72 usually 2 bus is enough and for A320 at least 3 to 4 bus.
Flight Information::
Date: 16/6/2018
Flight: Batik Air Indonesia ID 7109
Route: HLP-PDG
Aircraft Type: Airbus A320-200
Aircraft Registration: PK-LUM
Manufacturer Serial Number (MSN): 7421
Age: 1.7 Years
The aircraft is here!
Boarding still on going, looking outside from my initial seat before I voluntarily moved to 14 B at the emergency windows row.
View from my seat. So during the boarding process cabin crew need to move some pax around and ask another pax to seats on that row. Why? Strange things happened here, I was done my check-in on their website where the emex row can't be checked. So I picked 18A but the case during boarding process was there's 4 under age pax seated there? Like? How that's happened lah?
Lavatory inspection. Looking neat with that fake flower but the sink stoppers was gone?
Cabin view before the services started.
Snack service. Batik Air Indonesia will provides hot meal services on flight above 2.5 hrs and international flight. The packaging is really cheap just like paper lunch bag lol, the filled bread and muffin cake made by Lion Boga (Part of Lion Air Group) and also the mineral water bottled labeled with 'Batik' brand also. The cabin crew look so rushed when they're handed out the packaging like just stack it like it wasn't food and they're just put the 3 packaging in the middle seat table, whereas there's plenty of time lah to do it nicely, and yeah it does happen again on my flight bag. They're so rushed like put the snack service time less than 10 minutes???
I manage to explored the seat back contents which included invocation card, safety card, and Batik Inflight magazine. Lion Air Group flight map and Lion Air Group fleet.
Okay, so since ID's A320 PTV IFE fitted with the Lumexis and they're suspended many of its operation ended up lots of ID's A320 is PTV IFE-less. Currently ID have been installed new PTV IFE manufactured by Zodiac Rave, same with the PTV IFE installed at A330 Thai Lion Air (SL/TLM). Seat pitch on emergency window row. What a space!
Cabin view before landing.
Disembark process started up with the business class pax first and then the rest of the pax.
Welcome to Minangkabau Airport! Back here again after 12 years!
Walk to the arrival area.
Garuda Indonesia and sunsets.
Going down to the ground level and outdated interior of PDG terminal.
The famous roof of Minangkabau and on the way to Padang City
So here is the end of my short journey with Batik Air Indonesia to Padang.
The End
My other flight report:
1. Citilink Indonesia QG810 Surabaya (SUB) - Jakarta (CGK)
2. Garuda Indonesia GA154 Jakarta (CGK) - Batam (BTH)
3. Citilink Indonesia QG790 Batam (BTH) - Bandung (BDO)
4. Turkish Airlines TK57 Jakarta (CGK) - Istanbul (IST)
5. Turkish Airlines TK1721 Istanbul (IST) - Berlin (TXL)
6. Turkish Airlines TK1770 Prague (PRG) - Istanbul (IST)
7. Turkish Airlines TK56 Istanbul (IST) - Jakarta (CGK)
8. Lion Air JT646 Surabaya (SUB) - Lombok (LOP)
9. Citilink Indonesia QG167 Lombok (LOP) - Jakarta (HLP)
10. Wings Air IW1720 Jakarta (HLP) - Bandung (BDO)
11. Xpressair XN740 Bandung (BDO) - Palembang (PLM)
12. Citilink Indonesia QG813 Medan (KNO) - Bandung (BDO)
13. Malaysian Airlines MH865 Medan (KNO) - Kuala Lumpur (KUL)
Thank you so much for stopping by and read my flight report! Really sorry for typo, bad grammar, etc. Hope you enjoy!
