Ari Putro Cahyono and his extended family in Surabaya after missing AirAsia flight QZ8501

A family of 10 was meant to fly to Singapore from Surabaya yesterday morning to enjoy a fun end-of-the-year holiday in the Lion City. But due to a miscommunication with the airline, they narrowly missed their flight.

That flight was AirAsia QZ8501, which has been missing since Sunday morning.

Ari Putro Cahyono and 9 other members of his extended family arrived at the airport at 5:30 am because their airplane tickets were for a 7:20 am flight.

But Ari had not seen the calls or emails from AirAsia informing him of a change in the schedule – their flight had been moved up by two hours. Boarding for their flight ended just a few minutes before the entire family could make it to the airport.

“I did not read the email notification about the flight,” Ari said, as quoted by Kompas.

After some negotation, AirAsia rescheduled the family for another flight later that day. But soon after, the news that authorities had lost contact with QZ8501 came out.

“I saw the anxious families of passengers running to the airport,” Ari said.

Ari and his extended family, which includes five children and two babies, decided to scrap their entire holiday in Singapore after learning the news.

“I canceled our trip. The loss does not matter, as long as my family is safe,” he said.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that 11 members of Ari Putro Cahyon’s extended family were set to board AirAsia QZ8501. The correct number is 10.

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