AirAsia Indonesia admits administrative negligence

AirAsia Indonesia CEO Sunu Widyatmoko today admitted that it had committed "administrative negligence" when requesting a change in its Surabaya-Singapore flight schedule.

He said they had only verbally informed the Transportation Ministry of the change, The Jakarta Post reported.

"I admitted that administrative negligence occurred when requesting the change in flight schedule, as the verbal information failed to reach the ministry," Sunu was quoted by the daily as saying.

Speaking at the first hearing with the House of Representatives Commission V on transportation, Sunu admitted that the airline was only allowed to fly four days a week -- Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

AirAsia Indonesia had later requested a change in schedule to fly on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. The request was verbally conveyed to the country's Air Transportation Ministry’s director-general.

The hearing was not attended by Transportation Minister Ignasius Jonan who was in Pangkalan Bun where the search operations for Flight QZ8501 were ongoing.

National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) chief, Henry Bambang Soelistyo and officials from the National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT) had also submitted their reports to the commission.

On Jan 2, the Indonesian Transportation Ministry had suspended the airline's Surabaya-Singapore route for violating the operational hours following the QZ8501 crash in the Java Sea on Dec 28.

Sunu's statement contradicted AirAsia CEO Tan Sri Tony Fernandes' who, last week, had said they had the rights to fly the route.

"We have the rights to fly the Surabaya-Singapore route. We have flown according to schedule and have the rights to fly for seven days a week.

"We have secured both slots as well as approval from both Indonesia and Singapore. What happened was purely an administrative error," Fernandes had said.