Review of Citilink Indonesia flight from Surabaya to Jakarta in Premium Eco

Prologue

Good day, everybody!

Thanks for visiting this flight report! Here, I have described my flight experience with Citilink, an Indonesian low-cost carrier, on a flight from Juanda Airport (Surabaya) to Soekarno-Hatta Airport (Jakarta). In general, Citilink mostly serves domestic flights using a variety of aircrafts, from ATR 72-600, A320 family, up to A330neo. In this report, I flew with their Airbus A320neo. Additionally, I also have uploaded a video version of this report, so make sure to check the following video!

ARRIVING AT THE JUANDA AIRPORT

I arrived at their sole departure terminal. It has been upgraded significantly in the past few decades and so the corridor of the terminal itself can accomodate a huge number of people. I myself decided to go visit a cafe to get some drink before I went to the terminal.

The conditions of the terminal's corridor when I arrived.

This is the cafe that I went to.

After I was done with my drink, I went to the terminal building. On the way, I had to verify that I was safe to travel through a dedicated machine, and this was done using a QR code in an app called PeduliLindungi.

Departure terminal

After I went through the machine and I got myself into the terminal, I searched for the check-in counters for Citilink passengers. By the time I got there, it was all quite quiet (first picture below). There was a special line for Royal Green passenger, though (second picture below).

There are a number of benefits by being a Royal Green passenger: (besides a special check-in line)
- Extra 5kg of allowed baggage (From 20kg to 25kg) 
- Free access to lounge
- Priority boarding
- Blocked middle seat
- Free meal (hot meal or snacks depending on the length of flight) 

After I got my ticket, I went straight to the lounge. As Citilink (and Garuda as its parent company) did not have its own lounge, their passengers are allocated to the airport's sole lounge: Concordia Lounge.

Lounge

The lounge itself is quite huge, and it is understandable as the lounge is meant to serve passengers from all airlines + card companies. And the seating area is also huge as well.

There are two main spots to get food and beverages. The first one is the bigger one.

This spot offers a range of snacks and hot meals (such as porridge), as well as beverages (iced tea, hot tea, coffee, and infused water).
The other spot only serves hot meals only. 

I've decided to get a fried rice, with noodles and chicken on the side, as well as crackers, sandwiches, and iced tea.

After spending about 2 hours inside the lounge, I decided to got to the waiting room. I had to go to the secutity check first before I got myself to the room. The waiting room itself is quite long and huge, and it is understandably so as the terminal had to accomodate a huge influx of passengers, especially during peak hours. There are also a number of food and beverage outlets, clothing outlets, and tons of seating and charging stations so you wouldn't need to worry about getting hungry, thirsty, running out of batteries, etc.

BOARDING

Soon, come boarding time. Royal Green passengers get to board first as part of their priority boarding advantage. 

As I was getting closer to the plane, then I realized that I would be on board an A320neo. Though it implies that I would be getting to a new airplane, the cabin was the same as those in A320ceos.

But safe to say that the seat itself was quite thick and comfortable enough for a 90-minute flight. Kudos to non-slimline seats!

INSIDE THE PLANE

The legroom was quite alright and the foot room for my feet was just enough when I stowed my bag underneath the seat.

As the case with low-cost airlines, there was an ads in different places, including right in front of me.

One of the scenes when the plane was taking off.

There were individual air conditioner and reading lights for each passenger.

And the table was not foldable but was able to withstand a regular-size laptop.

These were the contents from the seat pocket. There were only two items: safety card and the inflight magazine.

For this flight, I was given a complementary snack box by the crew.

It contained two types of bread, a 330ml water, a KitKat, a sanitary wipe, as well as a greeting card from the CEO of Citilink.

And soon enough we were already approaching Soekarno-Hatta Airport in Jakarta

ARRIVING AT SOEKARNO-HATTA AIRPORT

After I arrived, I had to go for a long walk from one end of the terminal to the other end just to get to the baggage claim area. It was approximately 400 meters long.

This was the condition of the baggage claim area, arguable one of the biggest in Indonesian airports.

Interestingly, the vending machine provided in this area was also selling beauty products. I never knew someone would by such product, inside the airport.

After I got out of the baggage claim area, I was met with a number of food outlets as well as services offering taxi rides, bus shuttles, and even car rentals.

And that is the end of this flight report. Thank you for reading this make sure to watch the video I attached above, and please comment if you have something in mind. Thank you!