1. If you are traveling from the States, on one itinerary (even if you overnight in Australia or even in Port Moresby), you should be allowed your international luggage allowance on your domestic connection. At the transfer desk, if they want to charge you for excess or overweight baggage, make sure they know you have come from America (and not just from Australia). People traveling up from Australia are not allowed the same number of bags.
However, Air Niugini has just announced new economy baggage allowances for its passengers travelling on its Australian routes – Cairns, Brisbane and Sydney. Effective immediately passengers travelling in economy will be allowed one bag – 23 kilos (it was 20kg).
2. On your domestic Air Niugini flight, you are only allowed 15 lb (7 kg) of hand luggage per person if you have transferred from an international flight, 11 lb (5 kg) if just domestic. They have stopped anyone carrying large carry-on bags and weighed those on the scale that is right by their desk. If you can’t re-pack your things to get the weight down, you will have to step out and check your bag. If at all possible, check in those large carry-on bags with your luggage at the transfer counter. Or, redistribute the weight between all your carry-ons to lessen the load of the larger bag. Do not assume you can sweet-talk your way in with excess or heavy carry-ons.
3. If you are traveling with a large stroller, you can have it tagged along with your checked-in bags, so when they take it from you at the gate as you get on your domestic flight it will already have a tag on it.
4. If at all possible, allow yourself PLENTY of time between your international arrival at Port Moresby and your domestic connection. We have seen multiple occasions where 3-5 international flights are landing in POM at the same time or near same time! By the time they process all those flights worth of people through immigration AND customs, you may not get out to the terminal for an hour or longer after your plane lands. We have had to practically run to the Domestic Terminal with people and all their hand luggage and little ones a couple of times already and we have only been doing this for a couple weeks.
5. Sometimes they will open the Transfer Desk INSIDE the Customs area (to the left after you go through the Customs line) so you can go straight there to check your bags through to your next flight and get your boarding passes. If that is not open, come through the double doors and go to the Transfer counters which are at the other end of the same building (don’t go outside). After you check your bags and get your boarding passes, then go outside and all the way down to the Domestic Terminal.
I hope this is helpful for those who are making plans to come our way!
Taken from “Travelling to PNG” Blog
