FLYING METRO MINI

Before you start your Christmas holiday, maybe it is worth it to notice what has been going on to our airlines. And nothing could be more telling than what I read from an editorial titled METRO MINI TERBANG (flying Metro Mini) on Warta Kota December 7, 2007. With all that has been going on with Indonesia's airliners, the title simply affirms how the airliners are.

Everybody knows Metro Mini. This smaller-than-the-average-bus kind of transportation, painted red, roams Jakarta streets and has developed love-hate feeling towards its passengers, with the hate side taking a much bigger proportion. It is wanted for it is cheap. That is all. And the rest is , you know, hate.
It does not mind regulations as if they were there only to be broken; Metro Mini runs like crazy when it wants to and drags like a lazy snail when it wants to for no apparent reason nor does it concern passengers, be it their safety or comfort.

Now let's see our airliners. Except their cheap tickets, these are all you have heard very recently:
1. One plane's engine cover dropped on the runway. The authority admitted that the cover
could have been very dangerous for other planes
2. One engine stopped while the plane was on the runway. Imagine if it had stopped while the plane was taking off.
3. One failed to take off because the cargo was loaded too much on that plane's tail space, making it unable to beat the gravity.
4. One plane's body cracked, making it look like a bird with a twisted neck.


Even the cat with the nine lives prays.