For those who have heightened level of awareness on their nutritional intake, the word ‘belt’ is not referring to something you wear around your waist. And if you somewhat my travel plan, it is easy to deduce its about luggage belt in the airport (unless you are very blur)

I arrived at Jakarta international airport, Soekarno-Hatta (named after the duo who proclaimed Indonesia’s independence), last night. My Valuair flight was enjoyable despite few minutes of turbulence which should be quote normal unless you have heard Adam Air’s black box recording before the flight.

ps: Indonesia’s Transportation Minister said the recording is a fake, so listen at your own discretion.

ps: I have removed the download link for the recording since someone’s said that distributing black box record (fake or otherwise) is a violation of the law... so yea

For some reason, the immigration process was rather… smooth (surprised). I immediately went to belt 5 where baggages from my flight were supposed to be delivered (the information was displayed at LCD screen). Here was the thing that I saw for at least 5 mins.

Stoned passengers

Bored and hungry, I decided to stroll around and take a few photos using my nifty K800. To my surprise, I saw my luggage hapilly stranded on belt number 3!!! Together with many of suitcases from my flight (VH 505). Haiz… belt 5 and 3 is at least 50 metres apart.

I had seen some of the fellow VH505 passengers decided to take a stroll like me. I guess they would find the truth sooner or later especially with me waving at them from afar (yes I was too lazy to walk for some reason) I took my luggage and immediately evacuated myself from the airport.

Here are some of the photos that I have taken. Not good …

The Komodo dragon that has guarded the luggage belt since aeons ago…

Queues and queues…

Special lane for TKI - Indonesian maids who work overseas

Zoomed version of The Komodo dragon

Drugs… Deadly Penalty. The gun is just so cute.

Money changers and taxi counters that greets you after you have ‘cleared’ the arrival process. The guy in green shirt is one of the porters who will kindly help bring your luggages for a small fee. Usually they poach and hog the trolley.

People who waited outside the arrival hall. My parents were among those people.

Some of the information I am going to present below may not be accurate and some part of the information may be classified. My source which is supposed to be quite obvious by now said this change will be implemented starting September 2008. So… still got to prepare for the change in Singapore - USA (air) travel industry.

I will present in point form since… I am lazy. Most of them are verbatim.

• An A380 aircraft requires USD350,000.00 as at present, worth of jet fuel each round trip to New York from Singapore. There will be more such big birds in the sky soon, with SQ accruing a few more such aircrafts. 
• The crunch here is travel on coach or economy class is going to be phased out for such aircrafts.  The airfare on economy class does not cover the operating cost for the airlines.
• Currently, there is only one flight operating to New York from Singapore via Frankfurt.  The seats on economy class for the flights Singapore/New York/Singapore is near impossible to get hold of.  Why you may ask? This is due to the strong Euro Dollar.  It is lucrative for the airlines to board passengers from Frankfurt to New York as the airfare is higher than that from Singapore to New York.
• The number of seats bound to USA will be decreased as SQ will stop flying Taipei/Los Angeles route.  Eva Air is going to cut some of their USA destinations and China Airlines will stop flying Taipei/Seattle.
• Thai International has stopped flying to New York and will be down sizing their aircrafts for long haul sectors.
• The route left for most USA bound flights is via Tokyo. The Japanese market for flights from Japan to USA is still very lucrative and the airfare is higher than that from Singapore, therefore, here again the airline would shift their flight load to board passengers from Japan rather than from Singapore.
• All the above boils down to the possibility of getting seats out of Singapore to USA, making it near impossible.
• Domestic carriers within USA, will be charging for check in baggage at 1st piece USD40 and 2nd piece USD25 up to a maximum weight of 23 kg.
• Travelers are going to be inconvenienced, as they would have to queue up to have their baggage weighted and paid for prior to boarding pass issuance.
• Minimum connecting times between flights would now have to be extended to at least 4 hours to clear both security and payment of check-in baggage, especially for year end home leave travel.
• Number of USA domestic flights would be reduced and the weekday/weekend fares will be reinstated at a higher fare level.  The weekday fares are estimated to cost at between 50 – 70% more than that of weekend fares.
• Please book and ticket early especially for year end travel back to USA and where possible do not change schedules booked as it is going to be difficult to get seats from Singapore.
• Expect drastic changes in the industry as airlines will be taking measures to be viable in this difficult economic times in the USA.

Sounds possible…