22 reviews
Good day, everybody!
Thanks for visiting this flight report! Here, I have described my flight experience with Citilink, an Indonesian low-cost carrier, on a flight from Juanda Airport (Surabaya) to Soekarno-Hatta Airport (Jakarta). In general, Citilink mostly serves domestic flights using a variety of aircrafts, from ATR 72-600, A320 family, up to A330neo. In this report, I flew with their Airbus A320neo. Additionally, I also have uploaded a video version of this report, so make sure to check the following video!
I arrived at their sole departure terminal. It has been upgraded significantly in the past few decades and so the corridor of the terminal itself can accomodate a huge number of people. I myself decided to go visit a cafe to get some drink before I went to the terminal.
The conditions of the terminal's corridor when I arrived.
This is the cafe that I went to.
After I was done with my drink, I went to the terminal building. On the way, I had to verify that I was safe to travel through a dedicated machine, and this was done using a QR code in an app called PeduliLindungi.
After I went through the machine and I got myself into the terminal, I searched for the check-in counters for Citilink passengers. By the time I got there, it was all quite quiet (first picture below). There was a special line for Royal Green passenger, though (second picture below).
There are a number of benefits by being a Royal Green passenger: (besides a special check-in line)
- Extra 5kg of allowed baggage (From 20kg to 25kg)
- Free access to lounge
- Priority boarding
- Blocked middle seat
- Free meal (hot meal or snacks depending on the length of flight)
After I got my ticket, I went straight to the lounge. As Citilink (and Garuda as its parent company) did not have its own lounge, their passengers are allocated to the airport's sole lounge: Concordia Lounge.
The lounge itself is quite huge, and it is understandable as the lounge is meant to serve passengers from all airlines + card companies. And the seating area is also huge as well.
There are two main spots to get food and beverages. The first one is the bigger one.
This spot offers a range of snacks and hot meals (such as porridge), as well as beverages (iced tea, hot tea, coffee, and infused water).
The other spot only serves hot meals only.
I've decided to get a fried rice, with noodles and chicken on the side, as well as crackers, sandwiches, and iced tea.
After spending about 2 hours inside the lounge, I decided to got to the waiting room. I had to go to the secutity check first before I got myself to the room. The waiting room itself is quite long and huge, and it is understandably so as the terminal had to accomodate a huge influx of passengers, especially during peak hours. There are also a number of food and beverage outlets, clothing outlets, and tons of seating and charging stations so you wouldn't need to worry about getting hungry, thirsty, running out of batteries, etc.
Soon, come boarding time. Royal Green passengers get to board first as part of their priority boarding advantage.
As I was getting closer to the plane, then I realized that I would be on board an A320neo. Though it implies that I would be getting to a new airplane, the cabin was the same as those in A320ceos.
But safe to say that the seat itself was quite thick and comfortable enough for a 90-minute flight. Kudos to non-slimline seats!
The legroom was quite alright and the foot room for my feet was just enough when I stowed my bag underneath the seat.
As the case with low-cost airlines, there was an ads in different places, including right in front of me.
One of the scenes when the plane was taking off.
There were individual air conditioner and reading lights for each passenger.
And the table was not foldable but was able to withstand a regular-size laptop.
These were the contents from the seat pocket. There were only two items: safety card and the inflight magazine.
For this flight, I was given a complementary snack box by the crew.
It contained two types of bread, a 330ml water, a KitKat, a sanitary wipe, as well as a greeting card from the CEO of Citilink.
And soon enough we were already approaching Soekarno-Hatta Airport in Jakarta
After I arrived, I had to go for a long walk from one end of the terminal to the other end just to get to the baggage claim area. It was approximately 400 meters long.
This was the condition of the baggage claim area, arguable one of the biggest in Indonesian airports.
Interestingly, the vending machine provided in this area was also selling beauty products. I never knew someone would by such product, inside the airport.
After I got out of the baggage claim area, I was met with a number of food outlets as well as services offering taxi rides, bus shuttles, and even car rentals.
And that is the end of this flight report. Thank you for reading this make sure to watch the video I attached above, and please comment if you have something in mind. Thank you!
Overall, it was a pretty decent experience with Citilink. The crew did a fantastic job in making sure that everything went smooth inflight, and the advantages of being a Royal Green passenger is greatly appreciated. But, there are several things that were lacking in that flight, particularly the lack of IFE and charging socket, even USB. Hopefully it will be something that Citilink can consider to add in the future.
Les contributeurs de Flight-Report ont posté 8 avis concernant 3 compagnies sur la ligne Surabaya (SUB) → Jakarta (CGK).
La compagnie qui obtient la meilleure moyenne est Garuda Indonesia avec 8.0/10.
La durée moyenne des vols est de 1 heures et 35 minutes.
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6 Comments
Regards, Dani
To be honest, I wouldn't directly compare Citilink's services with Garuda's, as Garuda Indonesia is a legacy carrier whereas Citilink is more to low-cost one. And so, Garuda definitely has better offering on their Business class compared to Citilink's Royal Green class. But, considering that it is relatively a short flight, Citilink's offer is more preferable, as their fare can be 4 times cheaper than Garuda's.
Hope my answer can be understood.
Regards, Fabian
LYSflyer
Cheers, Fabian
The lounge looks really nice. Lounges in Asia are often nice in my experience.
It’s great that they installed older style thick seats on the NEOs, which is almost unheard of these days. Though I imagine it can get pretty cramped outside of the Green zone.
As you mention, it is a shame they didn’t install at least USB power on the NEOs, but many LCCs (and even legacies) have done the same.
Thanks for sharing and welcome to Flight-Report!
Yes, the legroom in seats outside of the Green zone should be more cramped, but I can't 100% tell how tight or uncomfortable it is. Perhaps that's something I need to check out in the future.
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