An Indonesian politician couldn't get on a full flight, so he closed the
airport
Marianus Sae, a district chief from the
Indonesian island of Flores, found himself in a tight spot last weekend. He was
visiting another city but couldn't get a seat on a fully booked flight home for
a budget meeting. His solution: call his hometown airport and order security
officers to block the runway with their cars, preventing the Merpati Nusantara
Airlines plane from landing, and forcing its return.
"It is outrageous,"
an unrepentant Sae told the Jakarta Globe. "I begged for a ticket for five hours
to fly to Ngada and their answer was: 'The flight is full.'" In another
interview, he said, "The airline has hampered my state duty as the government
official, it should be a lesson for its management."
After a public
outcry, the country's transport ministry said Sae's move was unlawful, and that
the matter had been resolved-but that the it had no plans to take legal
action.
That will come as little surprise to most Indonesians, where
corruption and abuse of power are common complaints. The country sits at 114th
out of 175 countries in Transparency International's 2013 Corruption Perceptions
Index. Last year 88% of Indonesians polled said government corruption was
widespread; in October, the chief judge of the country's Constitutional Court
was arrested for allegedly taking a bribe in return for a favorable verdict.
Moreover, Sae's act is just another worry for those who travel on Indonesian
airlines, which are struggling to deal with a surge in passengers and several
recent fatal crashes.
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