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The airport in Bali


The airport in Bali

The airport will not win any awards for style, but it is functional enough and has the usual complement of overpriced restaurants, duty-free shops and other services. ATMs which accept Cirrus and Plus cards for withdrawals are available in airport departure and arrival areas and a range money changing kiosks including some operated by Indonesian banks such as BNI, BCA and Mandiri are available at the airport. Security protocols including passenger and baggage screening, are similar to other large international airports in the region. Limitations similar to those in the EU and US are placed upon the carrying of fluids and other so- called security items in hand luggage. International passengers should be prepared for scrutiny of their baggage, including all carry-on items. When departing, you will likely pass through a total of three security checkpoints, and possibly a further one at the boarding gate, so be patient, particularly when things are busy. Security protocols at the domestic terminal are similar to those applied at other Indonesian domestic hub airports, with baggage and carry-on screening, x-ray, metal detection, hand inspections and other security measures in place for departing passengers. Be mindful of airport porters who may attempt to take control of your luggage either adjacent to or immediately adjacent to the baggage claim. If you do not wish to engage the services of a porter, then a firm but polite no will suffice. If you do, a small gratuity is the order of the day with Rp 20,000-50,000 being about right depending on the size and number of bags. When departing from Bali, you are subject to the airport departure tax which can be paid in cash in Indonesian Rupiah only, so save some bills for the trip out. The airport departure tax is Rp 150,000 for international departures and Rp 40,000 for domestic departures. Departing Bali to overseas destinations can be a fraught experience. Corruption is rife (the most corrupt airport in Indonesia by far) and immigration, customs and airport officials operate a large number of scams aimed at relieving departing passengers of as much of their remaining cash as possible. The most common scam is to claim that souvenirs require export licenses (you can choose to fill out the supposedly necessary paperwork but there's so much of it you would miss your flight were you to complete it all. Fortunately the happy scammers have an easy solution - hand over lots of money [a few hundred thousand rupiah might be enough if that's all you've got in your wallet but amounts asked can range up to millions of rupiah/hundreds of dollars] and the license problem can be miraculously sorted out.) No license is required for anything other than antiques. Or it could be that you will be told of an excise duty that is payable. Other scams include removing alcohol from luggage, individuals charging departure tax (its payable at a booth and a receipt is stuck to the boarding pass), refusal to accept unwrapped checked luggage (meaning you have to pay to have your luggage wrapped in plastic shrink-wrap), and, on the way in, demanding cash deposits for expensive goods to ensure that they won't be sold (but, of course, there's no way to reclaim your deposit when you leave). A new International terminal is to be built at DPS and when the new terminal is opened the current International facilities are to be turned over to domestic operations. It is expected that these improvements will make Bali's airport a much nicer destination for airline travellers. The adjacent island of Lombok also has a new international airport and in the near future it is likely to be able to assist in balancing the incoming traffic load by reducing some of the onward destination traffic currently arriving in Bali. The new airport in Lombok will also provide a nearby safe alternative landing site for wide bodied aircraft in case of any emergency.

The Most Frequently Asked Travel Questions about Bali

Airport extortion

According to the Jakarta Post: "Ngurah Rai Airport staffers have a long and ugly history of attempting to extort illegal fees in the name of taxes or fines from visitors." In 2007 an incident received wide press coverage. Dorothy Longhurst, a cancer survivor on a recuperative trip to Bali, was put back on a plane with her husband to Australia when she refused to pay US$4,000 to overcome the technical illegality of only having 5 months and 2 weeks validity remaining in her passport.

Immigration procedures for Indonesia require six months remaining validity and several empty pages in the passports of arriving foreign tourists. The incident caused uproar and prompted the intervention of then Vice-President, Jusuf Kalla, who insisted the culpable immigration officer be fired.


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Bali Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.

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