Clients have been telling me what a flightmare it is to check in at 5 AM for CO and AA on both Sat. and Sunday. With the new change with the departure tax and the hundreds trying to check in the arrival area with usually one man checking passports and one immigration person taking the arrival cards, lines are long. Be forewarned. No one at the airport seems to know why one cannot obtain their departure tax BEFORE getting boarding passes. Does anyone understand this logic? For the solo traveler this is not good, IMHO.

Well, hopefully the 'powers that be' have figured out this bottle neck by April!! We have in past years just stopped by (a couple days in advance) when we were driving by the airport and bought our departure tickets.

Bea

in prior years, I have stopped by the airport in the middle of the day and paid my departure tax a few days before departure. Has this changed?

I took the 7am flight last year. The flight this year left on time according to flightaware.com. Last year, the flight left 1.5 hours late (date Feb 2007). Reason: The machine printing luggage tag was broken and they had to do it by hand. Making matter worse, the ticket agent got fed up and left leaving one person to take care of alot of people. We left @ 820. Once in EWR, we picked our luggage and they did not have tags on them. We tagged them, and handed them over to Continental. Then 45 min to go thru security. We missed our flight even though I told security that my flight will take off in 30 minutes.

All the rest of flights to my home town were booked. I ended up renting a car and driving back home. Along with me were my patient wife, baby sitter and 3 year old.

I was exhausted by the time I got home.

I'm going there in 3 weeks. I can get a better update on the situation for everyone.

Sue, here is a thread where they are now saying you have to pay the departure tax AFTER you get your boarding pass. Not something I am looking forward to at all. Hope they figure out something else better soon. http://www.oldbonairetalk.com/newsgroup/messages/27/343024.html

Get in line for your flight check in. Once you have boarding passes, then go to the Departure Tax lady and pay. She does not know why this new procedure is in place nor does Dudley at AA.

Sat. and Sunday bring a friend or have your traveling companion get in line for the entrance to the departure lounge while you get your departure tax. The line to get into the departure lounge Sunday took some 40 minute. The line at the departure tax was a good 20 min. All lines mixed up into each other. It was not fun.

would somebody update me on the departure costs (departure tax and security tax)? i think it's about $32 departure tax and about $1.40 security fee. is that about right?

can you get your boarding pass electronically??? or perhaps the day before departure??

Oh KLM yes...smart airline eh?? Yes Pat, you got it right. With the increase one would think it would be good to have more than 1 man checking passports for over 200 people ...ALL fling out the same time..grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Hi Pat, this is right from the Bonaire Insider: Bonaire International Airport Introduces a Security Fee

Bonaire International Airport, better known as Flamingo Airport, announced today that beginning January 1st, 2008 a new fee of FL 2.50 (USD $1.40) will be assessed to all passengers departing from Bonaire. With the income derived from this fee, the airport will be able to drastically increase the level of security it offers its passengers.

After September 11, 2001, many changes in airport security around the world caused dramatically increased costs. It is for this reason that the management of the airport has decided to introduce the security fee.

The security fee can be paid at the same time when paying the departure tax. (Source: Bonaire International Airport (BIA) N.V.)

Last year we flew non-stop ERW-CUR and took Divi to/from BON. Interesting thing is that we did NOT have to pay departure taxes in Curacao on the way home, as it was included in our Continental ticket. I wonder why Bonaire doesn't do that.

We flew CON over the holidays. On January 6, Sunday, we arrived at the airport about 505 AM. The line was forming. I dropped the wife and son off with the baggage and they got in line. I dropped the truck off. That took about 10 minutes at Budget and I walked over to the airport. I found the wife in line to pay the departure tax. The CON rep had passed out the boarding passes to people waiting to check baggage. At about 0530 they opened a second check in line. By 0545 we had cleared security and were sitting in the lounge. The lines were quite large by that time. I think AA had a check in at the same time and that added to the amount of people in que.

I think the Continental folks did a decent job of getting the people through the line.

Bonaire airport has their own website.
They still say pay tax first then check in.
Not much communication; is there any one person in charge at the airport who can explain the new procedure and the rational behind it?
Better yet who do we have to talk to for a reversal.
Henk.