REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- In both Surabaya and Singapore, anxious relatives of people on the missing AirAsia QZ8501 awaited news. The plane with 162 people on board lost contact with air traffic control on Sunday morning during its flight from Surabaya to Singapore.
"I should have been on the flight together with my friends," a man named Purnomo told TVOne in Surabaya. "We, seven people, had planned to go to Singapore for vacation but this morning I had an emergency. I had my passport in hand but had to cancel the trip."
An Indonesian woman at Singapore's Changi Airport said her sister and other family members, including two children, were on board.
"No one has told us anything. We heard the news and came to the airport," the woman said before entering a cordoned-off area.
Tony Fernandes, chief of Malaysia's AirAsia, said he was heading to Surabaya with his Indonesian management team.
"My only thought are with the passengers and my crew. We put our hope in the SAR (search and rescue) operation and thank the Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysian governments," he said on Twitter.
Indonesia AirAsia is 49 percent owned by Malaysia-based budget carrier AirAsia with local investors holding the rest. The AirAsia group, including affiliates in Thailand, the Philippines and India, has not had a crash since its Malaysian budget operations began in 2002.
The incident comes at the end of a disastrous year for the region's airlines. Malaysia's national flag carrier, Malaysia Airlines, lost two aircraft this year.
Flight MH370 went missing on March 8 on a trip from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew on board and has still not been found. On July 17, Flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board.
Indonesia AirAsia has a fleet of 30 Airbus A320s. The missing plane has been in service for just over six years, according to airfleets.net.
All AirAsia-branded airlines operate aircraft made by Airbus, which has orders for several hundred planes from the group. AirAsia is considered one of the European planemaker's most important customers.
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