Garuda Bali to Lombok - recommended

Having once more used the Garuda service between Bali & Lombok, I have to say this really is a superior flight service between the islands, and I do recommend it to anyone wanting to fly between Bali & Lombok.

The service only operates once per day in the evening. The aircraft is a Flying Boeing 737-300 with 16 business class and 94 economy seats.

The current schedule is departing Bali at 19.05, arriving 19.40 (actual in air time is 20 mins, with additional time for taxiing). Departs Lombok 8.15pm arriving Bali 8.50 pm.

I flew on Sat 25/9, paid Rp 378,000 which was about the same as my Merpati flight to Lombok 2 weeks previous. The service and comfort was like chalk and cheese.

The Garuda flight was 30 mins late taking off to Bali due to bad weather in Lombok delaying the arrival of the aircraft. Bookings can be made online on the Garuda website, and paid with Visa and Master Credit Card issued by banks in Australia, China, Germany, Hongkong, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Netherlands, Singapore, Switzerland, Thailand and Vietnam. Garuda website

Would be happier booking flights via Garuda website - just to make sure we can get there and back and would prefer a solid booking.
Are Garuda pretty much on time, except for weather.
Would we make it in time for a midnight flight back to Melbourne or do you think we would be safer doing our last night in Bali??
Price seems very reasonable on their website.
Thanks, Deb.

Deb
We were on a midnight flight back to Perth and it was fine. We've done this flight a few times now and it is the best way to go. You get your whole day in Lombok, have some early dinner and then head to the airport. No need to stay in Bali for a day - I hate doing that, you kind of spend the last 2 days departing. Checkout of two hotels in two days.

A midnight flight you need to check in by say 10. So if you are arriving at 7:40 you have plenty of time, it allows for significant flight delays ex Lombok.

Garuda is by far the most reliable flight. It has delays like any airline, but it doesn't cancel flights on a whim like the other airlines tend to.

The biggest problem is Bali airport departures. The last couple of times we departed, the line to get in to the departure area was very long and very slow. It took about an hour to get through. There were 3 lines that snaked around - so thousands of departing people funnelling through 3 scanners. Once we got through, check-in was ok, but immigration lines were horribly long again. And finally the boarding line was also extremely long with 3 flights departing through the same gate. Don't make the mistake of waiting for the line to clear and then going through, you can miss your flight (as I saw several people do).

You think arriving at the airport with a few hours to spare will be a lot of sitting around waiting, it is actually a lot of standing around waiting in queues. Departing is much worse than arriving.

Freo