Review of Citilink Indonesia flight from Jakarta to Surabaya 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 Soekarno-Hatta Airport (Jakarta) to Juanda Airport (Surabaya). 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 departure terminal

I arrived at the Terminal 3, the newest one of all terminals in the airport. 

The corridor outside of the terminal building was quite huge, as the terminal was meant to accomodate a large number of people coming in and out for domestic and international flights. Some of the international airlines that used Terminal 3 can be seen in the picture above. Just outside of the terminal building, there is a flight information screen, an information map, as well as a vending machine that sells sanitary products.

Once inside, I found a group of check-in counters for Citilink passengers. It was quite crowded at the Economy passenger lines, but it was really quiet at the Royal Green passenger line.

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 own ticket and my baggage sent, I went around to see what the terminal itself offered. There were ATM centers, a number of food outlet, charging stations, etc. I decided to go get a snack at Auntie Anne's.

Once I passed the security check, there were also various number of outlets, selling goods from food & beverage, books, clothing, electronics and even luggages.

LOUNGE

I decided to spend about two hours of my time utilizing my free access to lounge. Citilink uses Garuda Indonesia's lounge in Terminal 3, that is Garuda Lounge. By the time I arrived at the lounge itself, the size of the lounge was admittedly not impressive, it was rather narrow, but I believe the seat capacity at the lounge was just enough as the lounge itself is quite long, about 50 meters.  Though, there were some parts of the lounge that was blocked from public usage.

For the food and beverage offering, the choices were limited, but adequate. For food, there were some breads, congee porridge, fried rice, steamed corn and potatoes. For beverages, there were iced tea, hot tea, as well as coffee.

I decided to go for a full meal, that was fried rice, some breads and puddings, as well as a Ristretto.

BOARDING

By the time boarding time nears, I left the lounge and went straight to the designated gate. With priority boarding, I was one of the first passengers to arrive at the aircraft.

inside the plane

Seats with green covering indicates places where Royal Green passengers would sit. With the middle seat blocked, I was granted a rather big space to move around with my arms and legs.

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

There were individual air conditioners and individual reading lights for every passenger on board this aircraft.

The table itself was standard-size and was able to withstand my 14 inch laptop. This made it rather relatively easy for me to work with my laptop during the flight.

There were three seat pocket contents onboard this flight. There was an airsickness bag, a safety card, as well as a shopping catalogue where Citilink offers a various number of goods, ranging from perfumes, to electronics, clothing.

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

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

As the aircraft approached Juanda Airport, the scenery near Surabaya itself was quite cloudy. And it was consistent even up to landing scene.

In the picture above, there was a separate apron for smaller aircrafts, ranging from Twin Otter to ATR 72s. My aircraft parked alongside other medium-sized aircrafts, such as Boeing 737-800s

arriving at juanda airport

After the plane was safely parked and I was able to go to the terminal, I went straight to the baggage claim area.

The baggage claim area was quite huge, but the specific spot to collect baggage was quite narrow.

After I got my own baggage, I had to do one more thing before I could go out of the arrival terminal: scanning my flight information through a generated QR Code to one of the available airport staffs. 

That was the exit door out of the terminal. The left part of the picture below are outlets that offered taxi rides, bus shuttles, and even car rentals.

I finally got out of the terminal, and with that, this flight report ends.