Lion Air blames glitches for long delays

JAKARTA. Low-cost airline Lion Air has claimed that operating issues and technical glitches were behind prolonged delays of five flights since Sunday.

"During the crew work shift, we were facing operating hour restrictions at some destination airports so we had to delay some flights until this morning,” Lion Air operational director Edward Sirait said as quoted by kompas.com on Monday.

Edward added that some aircraft also experienced technical problems.

Claiming that the airline has apologized and given compensation to affected passengers, Edward promised all delayed flights would depart by Monday.

The flights affected by the delay were the JT 650 Jakarta-Lombok route; JT 630 Jakarta-Bengkulu; JT 590 and JT 582, both Jakarta-Surabaya; and JT 526 Jakarta-Banjarmasin.

On Monday morning, local TV station Metro TV reported that hundreds of Lion Air customers were stranded at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport’s Terminal 1A. The airline has reportedly given Rp300,000 (US$22) to each passenger in compensation for the delays, as well as Rp200,000 for accommodation.