Kal-Star sets a new standard for Indonesian regional airlines.
As well as several national airlines, Indonesia also has a number of smaller, regional airlines. They include:
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Eastern Indonesia (Maluku, West Papua) e.g. Sorong |
Nusa Tenggara (a.k.a. Lesser Sunda Islands) e.g. Labuan Bajo |
Various e.g. North Sumatra, West/Central Java |
These airlines have some shortcomings compared to their larger peers:
– Despite having e-tickets, they still do not offer online booking.
– They often only accept bookings up to 30 days (i.e. less than a month) in advance.
– Because the airport runways they use are shorter, the planes are smaller. As a consequence, the baggage allowances are often smaller (10kg or 15kg) too – this is understandable. However, it does not explain why regional airlines often do not say the baggage allowance on each flight.
But now one airline has improved in these areas, and is raising the bar for Indonesian regional airlines:
serving Kalimantan
(the Indonesian half of Borneo)
e.g. Pangkalan Bun
Kal-Star clearly states in the booking conditions that the baggage allowance on its Boeing 737-500 jets (top picture, above) is 20kg, and 10kg for its ATR42-300 turboprops (bottom picture). Tickets can be booked up to 90 days in advance, on its website.
However, foreign visitors to Indonesia wanting to book Kal-Star flight tickets will still have a problem: same like its larger competitors, the Kal-Star website does not accept foreign credit cards.
Fortunately, Mau Ke Mana can assist people in this situation.
If you are interested in flying Kal-Star, please fill in an enquiry form here.
I had no trouble booking Kalstar tickets online using a foreign credit card late last year (2015). Only issue that I had was that they didn’t notify me of schedule changes so had a long wait for one flight at Jakarta airport (just fortunate that the flight wasn’t moved to 2 hours earlier!). Anyway, I learnt from that and will now always check the website the day before.
Lia on I’ll Take The Stairs | |
rob on Flying Monkeys | |
HUSNI BIN ASMUNI on Airport Tax Guide | |
Sharon Marchman on Arief Yahya, Indonesian Tourism Minister | |
Lars Linden on Arief Yahya, Indonesian Tourism Minister |
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On Kal-Star flights from Jakarta to Pangkalan Bun, what check in time do they require?
Thank you for your help.