Family skipped AirAsia flight due to grandpa’s illness

Passengers queue for their flights at the AirAsia check-in counter in Changi International Airport on Sunday, Dec. 28, 2014 in Singapore. An illness of the family patriarch led to the Singapore trip of one Indonesian family being canceled–and in turn saved their lives. AP PHOTO/WONG MAYE-E

KUALA LUMPUR–An illness of the family patriarch led to the Singapore trip of one Indonesian family being canceled–and in turn saved their lives.

Christopher Incha Prasetya, 10, cried when his parents canceled their four-day visit to Singapore because of his grandfather’s illness.

Christopher, his parents and two siblings were among those who didn’t show up after buying tickets for Sunday morning’s flight.

“The kids were still on holidays and Christopher was very upset when we said that we couldn’t go after all,” his mother, Inge Goreti Ferdiningsih, 37, said by phone from Surabaya, Bloomberg reported.

“When we told him the plane was missing, he didn’t believe us until we showed him the tickets.”

Ferdiningsih, an accountant, said she and her businessman husband, Chandra Susanto, paid more than 8 million rupiah (S$645) for return flights on the low-cost carrier for their family, which also includes seven-year-old daughter Nadine and son Felix, five.

They booked the trip in June and had planned to spend three nights on Sentosa, with the children eager to visit a water theme park. With her father ill, Ferdiningsih said they decided to call off the vacation the day before the flight.