https://www.asiaone.com/asia/batik-air-fake-flight-attendant
A 23-year-old woman from the South Sumatra, Indonesia flew told her family she’d been hired as a flight attendant and they were proud of her. She was set to fly Batik Air 7058 from Palembang to Jakarta on January 6, and it wouldn’t make sense to them if she traveled just like any other passenger.
So she boarded wearing a Batik Air-style cabin crew uniform with a white kebaya top, batik skirt and her hair done in a crew-style bun with French twist. She even carried a fake ID card showing her as an employee of the airline.
She was a paying passenger with a valid boarding pass, but police say she used a fast-track crew lane at the airport. And onboard actual crew became suspicious, since the uniform pattern didn’t quite match and she couldn’t answer basic crew, training, and procedure questions.
They alerted security in Jakarta who intercepted the woman on arrival. There, she was detained and questioned and her uniform pieces, ID card, and bags were seized.
Btw ni org bisa onboard karena beli tiket dikira mungkin extra crew tp pas ditanya ngengngong alias ga bisa jawab, mana idcardnya beda sendiri id 15 sebelum masehi (?), pas landing udh ditunggu avsec pic.twitter.com/DndTievI8v
— Lalalilisasa M (@ndymanoballl) January 7, 2026
She admitted she’d been posting staged content to social media about working as a flight attendant to keep up the ruse, since she was embarrassed to admit that she failed the airline’s recruitment. Her parents would even take her to the airport for work.
Police also report she may have been scammed Rp30 million (US$1,781) by someone promising to “get her in” to the airline as cabin crew. Ultimately they found no criminal element, and she was released without charges.
@asiaone Videos have gone viral of a woman dressed in a Batik Air flight attendant uniform boarding a flight travelling from Palembang to Jakarta, with allegations that she was not a real staff member. Other clips show airport staff escorting her off the flight and of the woman later detained in an office room. Batik Air has yet to comment on the incident, but the videos have raised concerns about flight safety. #indonesia #news #batikair #airline #flightattendant ♬ original sound – AsiaOne
Here, she apologizes for what she did.
Batik Air, originally called Space Jet, was founded as a full service subsidiary of Indonesian airline Lion Air, the carrier which experienced the first of two Boeing 737 MAX 8 crashes on October 29, 2018.
I’ve written about two of their pilots falling asleep in the cockpit, veering off course, and lying to air traffic control about it. They were not fake crew.
