Domestic Flights in PNG

Hey!
just a quick question: is there any package of flights to travel in Papua New Guinea? between big cities and the islands? or it is necessary to buy each flight separately??
cheers, greetings from Poland,
stan

You must buy each flight separately, but if you fly into the country on an Air Niugini ticket, you can get nice discounts on their domestic flights, I think.

I know this is not directly answering your question but I spent 1 year travelling the PNG islands, coast and entire length of highland and used only 4 domestic flights. Each flight was with a different company, for budget reasons I asked about for the cheapest plane, which is never the safest. One flight was with a mining company who I looked up when in Port Moresby(POM) and had a spare seat they were willing to sell off cheap. Check with some logging and mining companies on the off chance they might do this on a regular basis.

G'day Stan,

There really isn't a lot of tourism in PNG at all at this stage. It's only an emerging market. You need to purchase individual domestic flights and the best places to check for these is with Air Nuigini or Airlines PNG. Both of these airlines can be a bit unreliable with constant cancellations, but PNG is kinda like that and if you take your patience with you, you'll have a blast...

Cheers

Craig Hamilton

Edited by: hammo01

Hi, this is a snippet from a larger post I wrote about PNG last year...

Flying internally in both PNG and the Solomon Islands is highly unreliable. I know everyone says that but I suggest booking multiple connecting flights if you want to get a wonderful taste of what “unreliable” means.
• Flying
o Planes often simply don’t arrive. The ground staff at the airport it was supposed to arrive at will have zero information about it even after it has supposed to have landed.
o The PNG Airlines timetable you have been given or printed out from the official website bears little that resembles reality and is best considered only a rough guide as to when/where planes may go
o Sometimes the pilot will look down at the runway and decide not to land. Be very careful of SEGHE airfield in Western Province, Solomon Islands!!! If it has rained in the last 24hrs there is a good chance your flight will land at Ramata instead…
o If you try to make a connection you will probably miss it, even if it’s the next day
o PNG Airlines really don’t seem to give a sh1t if you miss your flight/connection etc
o …however Air Niugini put you up in a hotel with meal vouchers if you are stranded over night! I got this treatment twice, once in Alotau and one cruisy day and night at the Crowne Plaza in Port Moresby stuffing my face at the buffet. Consider that… if you get stranded then Air Niugini will put you in the best hotel in town, book cunningly and get stranded as much as you can.

I was at a PNG airfield that shall remain nameless. The security staff had clearly received a new toy; a shiny new handheld metal detector; and were bickering over who got to play with it next. A rather random version of airport security was being played out, with the rules and conditions being roughly interpretted from a faded "Some things are never meant to fly" poster on the wall. Locals with foot long bush knives on their belts were passing easily through security, while others were being made to remove the batteries from their hearing aids and put them in their pockets. I was eavesdropping on a commotion in front of me. The only other dim-dim in the airport had had a half full bottle of whisky discovered in his check-in luggage. Security argued that this was not allowed, while he argued that it didnt matter as it was in his check-in luggage, not his carry-on luggage. A stalemate ensued, but was soon broken by a suggestion of pure genius by the check-in staff. Why didnt he just finish the bottle now, before getting on the plane? I watched in disbelief as the check-in staff obligingly allowed this man to gulp back a half bottle of scotch, right there at the desk. Upon completion he was proudly rewarded with a boarding pass, and literally staggered towards the gate. Typically, and perhaps fortunately this time, the plane never turned up anyway.

I've been fortunate enough to destroy the Crowne Plaza buffet thanks to Air Niugini mangling their schedules too. Some seriously good gear.

In my experience, APNG were more reliable than Air Niugini, though I've been delayed overnight by both.

Watch out though... my Port Moresby Fatness experience was great but after I got back I discovered that the Crowne Plaza had hit my credit card for my dinner, despite the fact that I had used an Air Niugini voucher.

I cancelled the charge and its was all good.
I had had to give my Visa card details as deposit against a phone call.