Towards end of January I'm heading for several days in Lembah then on to Misool using Lion Air in-country. Any recent travel reports on what to expect for traveling with camera gear? I see a max of about 7Kg for carry-on and 15Kg for checked baggage, but can pay pre-trip for up to 30kg. 

I was in Halamhera this year.

Mandao - Labuha with Lion Air
I bought +15 KG to have 30 kg for the checked baggage.

My backpack was more or less between 15 & 17 KG.

No problem all was fine

With Lion Air, you won't have any problems buying the extra kilos you need, the real problem is the reliability of the airline. Always check well before you leave, flight cancellations unfortunately can happen and Lion Air does this from time to time.
In 2023 I risked missing my intercontinental flight because Lion Air cancelled my flight from Sorong to Jakarta

4 hours ago, RVBldr said:

Towards end of January I'm heading for several days in Lembah then on to Misool using Lion Air in-country. Any recent travel reports on what to expect for traveling with camera gear? I see a max of about 7Kg for carry-on and 15Kg for checked baggage, but can pay pre-trip for up to 30kg. 

 

I travel with Lion Air about 20-30 flights per year and never had any problems with luggage.

I have 1x20kg checkin for dive equipment and clothes and 1x25kg checkin for camera equipment (excluding body/lenses/batteries). So about 45kg total to check in. Pretty much always bought that 30kg online and then its hit/miss at the airport will the charge for the remaining 15kg. If they do its about 100k per kg (depending on route), but sometimes they dont. Never hurts to be polite.

My carryon is maximum size 4 wheeled that weighs about 15kg. Never had any problems taking that to the plane. Most locals have 2-4 bags with them.

Best advice with carryon imo is to try to board early so you will get space in the overhead bin.

 

Also a special mention if you are new to flying domestic in Indonesia, keep hold of you bag tags until outside yor destination airport. Specially at the smaller airports there is someone checking that your bag tags numbers corresponds to the ones attached to luggage. But like i said, this is more at the smaller airports anymore.

 

All in all, dont worry about it and have cash for the excess luggage (bigger airports take CC).

I would suggest make sure you have good travel insurance, with enough missed connections cover.  Never flown Lion, but have heard of lots of people being left in the lurch by them.   Sounds like you have already booked but it is possibly wise to arrive with a spare day if you are connecting to a liveaboard.

4 hours ago, Chris Ross said:

Sounds like you have already booked but it is possibly wise to arrive with a spare day if you are connecting to a liveaboard.

Same for me  for the way back we stayed and will stay on a resort some days for diving. If my flight is cancelled I have time to take the internationale flight 

 

Hi,

 

we did a lot of travelling in Indonesia for the last 20 years+. In the past overall domestic flight travel was o.K. . Visiting 2024 October/November for 2 month again (Ambon, Saumlaki, Manado, Denpasar...). Lion AIr was a nightmare at these times. Flights cancelled and extreme delayed. Not even one worked. Good thing Cabin was luggage never checked. Garuda these times checked weight of domestic flight MDC-DPS on local passengers but not ours. Just for your info.

 

Br Markus

Remember that domestic carriers in Indonesia are expected to allow 23kg for scuba gear, which has accommodated our dive bags and/or my camera case.  Garuda has a good business class, which seems to wave a wand over any baggage sins; on our Garuda flight a few weeks ago from Sorong to Jakarta, we had zero baggage issues despite our mountain of bags, and we were waved through the carry-on weighing.  In May, we were on Teak from Manado to Singapore and it was a different story—they did allow the sporting-goods waiver, but we were still over a good bit.  The cost was 2.4 million IDR (about $150), which could only be paid in IDR—as our time to catch the plane dwindled, I was sent out of the terminal to an ATM which, to my surprise, promptly gave me three separate million-rupiah withdrawals, and of course the flight was a few minutes late, so we were on our way despite a bit of a nail-biter.

Edited January 1Jan 1 by RickMo

55 minutes ago, RickMo said:

Remember that domestic carriers in Indonesia are expected to allow 23kg for scuba gear,

Hummm where is this information to find?

Thanks in advance 

Here's a link to the Batik site.  The others have similar provisions.  https://help.batikair.com/article/bring-diving-equipment-diving-on-batik-air-indonesia-flights/750

23 minutes ago, RickMo said:

Here's a link to the Batik site.  The others have similar provisions.  https://help.batikair.com/article/bring-diving-equipment-diving-on-batik-air-indonesia-flights/750

 

That only applies to flights on Batik, not others within Lion grp (Lion, Wings, Superair). And its 15kg with alot of paperwork, good luck with that.

 

Garuda does have 23kg for dive equipment, but unfortunately they dont fly to alot of the dive destinations in Indonesia.

For Lion Air, do you guys recommend a Pelican or an inconspicuous bag? I've normally just traveled with a Pelican for carry on, but I suspect I'll need to check the bulk of the camera gear. 

Just a follow-up from the trip to Lembeh and then Misool. Per thread, I really didn't have any issues with carry-on, consolidating the camera body, lens and batteries in the carry-on backpack. I used a smaller luggage for bulk of housing, strobes, etc, and a 2nd bag for dive gear and shorts/shirts. We did pay for an additional 15 kg which was good thinking as total check-in weight was about 2 kg under my 35 kg limit. The only hic-up we had was Lion-Air not having our additonal weight purchase in the system when we departed Manado, but check-ins at Jakarta and Sorong all went well. 

Edited February 19Feb 19 by RVBldr