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Passengers on Singapore-Jakarta flight skip Indonesian immigration because of mix-up

JAKARTA — Passengers on a Lion Air flight from Singapore were wrongly ferried to the domestic terminal upon arrival in the Jakarta and ended up bypassing immigration. As a result of the mix-up, some 16 passengers on that flight have yet to get their passports stamped, even though this mistake happened a week ago, according to Indonesian news reports.

JAKARTA — Passengers on a Lion Air flight from Singapore were wrongly ferried to the domestic terminal upon arrival in the Jakarta and ended up bypassing immigration. As a result of the mix-up, some 16 passengers on that flight have yet to get their passports stamped, even though this mistake happened a week ago, according to Indonesian news reports.

After Lion Air flight JT161 landed in Soekarno-Hatta airport last Tuesday evening (May 10), some of the passengers were picked up in a shuttle bus that was meant to take them to Terminal 2, the international terminal. However, it brought them to Terminal 1 instead, which is meant for domestic passengers and does not require passengers to show their passports.

When the authorities realised the mistake, they tried to find the affected passengers but could not find everyone.

According to an account from one of the passengers on the flight, after she was picked up by the shuttle-bus, there was a change in bus drivers and the new bus driver took them to the wrong terminal.

Ms Natalie Gandarum told the Jakarta Globe that she was confused to find herself at the baggage claim section instead of immigration after getting off the bus.

“I thought to myself. This is strange. Why didn’t they stamp my passport first?” she told the paper.

When she asked airport officials if she needed her passport stamped, they assumed she was a domestic passenger and said it was not necessary.

“I tried telling them that I was on a flight from Singapore. I could tell (the officials) were confused but they insisted that I didn’t need to have my passport stamped,” she said.

It was only when a few other passengers complained about the same problem that airport officials started to believe her story.

By the time officials sprang into action to identify the other passengers though, some had already left the airport.

Ms Gandarum said she went to Terminal 2 and was shuttled around the terminal for close to two hours before her passport was stamped.

“I can’t even remember which terminal I eventually got my passport stamped at, because I was going all around the airport,” she said. “There was no explanation from Lion Air about how this happened and certainly no apologies.”

While there were about 180 passengers on the flight, only the estimated 40 passengers who boarded that particular shuttle bus were affected.

Indonesia’s Transport Ministry said that the problem occurred because another Lion Air flight from Padang had landed in an apron close by about the same time as the flight from Singapore.

“The airport bus driver ferried passengers from Singapore, thinking they were from Padang. When he realised that the passengers were from an international flight, it was too late because the passengers had already exited from Terminal 1,” Mr Hemi Pamuranhardjo, the head of the communication and information bureau of the Transport Ministry told Antara News.

According to the Jakarta Globe, the immigration office said on Monday that Lion Air has been ordered to locate the 16 passengers whose passports remain unstamped. WITH JAKARTA GLOBE

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