UPDATE: Bali Airport Situation Improving & Arrival Queues To Normalize According To Authorities

I was able to have a detailed conversation with the Immigration Authorities and Government of Denpasar-Bali Ngurah Rai Airport about my experience at the airport.

According to the Head of Immigration at the airport, who was able to provide me with current arrival data, authorities are working to improve the situation.

It was an extremely busy day last Friday with almost 9000 arrivals and there were several peak times when we were able to spread the word.

Based on the carriers' frequencies and newly resumed routes, international arrivals are always stretched through a time period. Long haul arrivals in Singapore, Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur are served by many of these.

I used a Concierge arrival service to get to my house on Friday. The problem was that when Thai Airways arrived at 14:43 there were still more than a thousand people in the arrivals hall.

• Document Check
• Visa on Arrival Purchase counter
• Immigration Counter Queue

On the official website, you can follow all of the arrivals.

Thanks to the pre-booking arrival service that was guiding customers to the crew lane, it took me just 1:03h to get my passport scanned at the airport. There is a few more minutes left in the airport.

Other people were not as lucky. Tensions flared further you got to the front and one passenger became very irate. Some of these passengers said they were in the arrivals hall for nearly five hours, and while they apparently had a credit card receipt with them, I found that to be very odd.

It's hard to believe someone who arrived at 10:00am would still be there at 3pm. I am not sure why. In the previous article, I asked where all these people came from.

If it's two and a half, three, or five hours, it's still too long, as evidenced by how people were getting out of control.

The airport and immigration authorities provided some interesting statistics.

• Total Arrivals on Friday July 29th: 8924
• First flight arrived at 07:57am and the last one at 23:55pm
• Denpasar Interntional Terminal has 32 immigration counters of which 6 were closed entirely on Friday, they have since been reopened as I was assured
• The average time to process one passenger at passport control is accounted with 1 Minute
• On Friday, if the 26 counters were staffed and operated as normal they could have processed 1560 passengers per hour, that is if everything runs smooth. It doesn’t include the time for document check and the visa on arrival purchase procedure.

The arrivals numbers are known in advance to the airport and last Friday was an exception according to the authorities. The time it takes to get out of the airport is too long.

When the additional six counters are open, the total capacity will increase to 1920. It might be possible if all the bottlenecks are removed. I would reserve the concierge pickup just in case it wasn't enough money to be sure.

The good news is that even the highest levels are currently dealing with this situation because the authorities are taking it seriously. I was told the six counters would be open again as of yesterday.

The head of immigration gave me a time schedule where passengers can expect to be busy at the airport.

• 06:00am – 13:00pm – Normal
• 13:00am – 15:00 pm – BUSY
• 15:00pm – 20:00pm – Normal
• 20:00pm – 22:00pm – BUSY
• 22:00 > – Normal

You might be able to time your arrival in Denpasar at a more convenient time slot if you aren't coming from overseas. The afternoon and late evening are times to avoid if you originate at a regional airport. Nothing is set in stone.

Airport authorities say Friday is the peak day.

Two of my friends arrived from Singapore at 9:50am. It was a lot better than last week. They were done in 15 minutes with the concierge service. Readers reported their differing experiences in the comments The arrival time is the most important thing.

The first tourists post-pandemic were welcomed in January with a shortQuarantine and a Visa on Arrival for US$35.

Bali Starts Welcoming International Tourists With 5 Day Quarantine + Direct Flights Begin On Singapore Airlines

Indonesia Expands Visa-On-Arrival To 72 Countries

The right thing to do was to welcome international tourists with vaccinations. The island has suffered for two years and many hotels are no longer open. I met a lot of people from Indonesia who were working on cruise ships and their stories were heartbreaking.

I believe that the central government in Jakarta has not supported the island as much as they could have. It didn't make sense to insist on one policy for a country of Indonesia's size and complexity. Thailand separated Phuket, Samui and the mainland because they needed a simplified approach to reenter the tourism industry. There was a result.

They were allowed to come up with their own plan. Hopefully exiting the Island will be quicker, and be happy that Bhai is back.

It was the conclusion.

Improvements have been made to the airport experience in order to make it as smooth as possible after last week's congestion at the airport.

I was concerned about this situation. The authorities were very easy to talk to and they were able to give me figures. I was able to see data with flow figures from the Head of Airport Immigration that helped me plan a bit better. Things will hopefully get better now that they are doing the right thing.