cozcharlie
Contributor
I would defer to Dan’s opinion —but my two cents are: I would say your optimal layover would be around 4-5 hours, where anything under 2 1/2 hours is starting to push your luck . With immigration and customs forms now mostly done in advance of arrival it doesn’t seem like it generally takes too long to get through customs and immigration my past couple of trips (maybe 30-45 minutes? ). The main reason you want a buffer is because flights to Sorong aren’t that frequent so you ideally give yourself some breathing room for various types of delays and issues. Sounds like you are taking Dan’s suggestion and flying Garuda which is has its domestic operations in the same terminal as the international flights (Terminal 3) . Batik operates out another terminal which can be a pain to get to for late night transfers. Please also note that for whatever reason Terminal 3 is very spread out . It is designed with gates only on one side of the building unlike most terminals I frequent that will have gates to your left and right as you walk through the terminal. (you tend to wind up with a very long walk to your gate—even with moving sidewalks it seems to take a while to get to the gate and I am a fast walker )
Like is said , others may have different views but those are mine . Some people will build a one night stay in Sorong ahead of their liveaboard . If you already have this buffer in your itinerary you might be more comfortable cutting close in Jakarta (if you have a one day buffer built in and something goes wrong with your flight you kill a day in a Jakarta airport hotel instead of a Sorong hotel ). I generally prefer to plan a few days of land-based diving in R4 ahead of my liveaboard so if something goes wrong I miss a day of land diving instead of trying to find some way to catch a liveaboard that has already sailed.
