A walkway linking the international and domestic terminals has opened at Ngurah Rai Airport. Passengers with connecting flights no longer have to leave the terminal, check in again and haul their suitcases themselves: bags are moved between the terminals for them.
A covered walkway between the terminals existed before, but the only way to reach it was to leave the international hall.
The walkway opened on August 17, in time for the 81st anniversary of Indonesia's independence. Before that, connecting from an international arrival to a domestic departure took a passenger about 90 minutes, while baggage took 150 minutes; in the other direction, from a domestic flight to an international one, it was 70 and 120 minutes. By the airport's calculations, a passenger will now need roughly 15 minutes and baggage about 45.
For now these are projections: the walkway was run through simulations before it opened. To keep to those times, airlines, ground services, immigration, customs and quarantine all have to work as a single chain.
It works in both directions — from an international arrival to a domestic departure and from a domestic arrival to an international one. These are the very connections people use to fly from Bali to Lombok, Flores and Java, and then come back to Denpasar to continue their journey home.
At the start it does not serve everyone: access is available to transfer passengers of certain airlines, and the list is promised to grow until all flights are included.
The route is marked with Domestic Transfer signs. They are placed in the arrivals area at the fork where the routes to immigration and to connecting flights split.
The walkway is part of the rebuilding of Ngurah Rai being carried out by the airport operator InJourney Airports. This year the airport is also expanding the arrivals area, reworking the boarding gates in the international terminal and increasing capacity to 32 million passengers a year. The approach roads to the airport have been rebuilt as well. A terminal-to-terminal walkway like this is the first of its kind in Indonesia.
The airport's domestic network has grown over the past year: flights to Sumba and Wakatobi were added in the summer, and Bali now has 22 domestic routes in total.
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