Short scenic flight between Bali and Lombok-Lion Air

Last week I got to flew between Bali and Lombok. This gave me lots of opportunities

1. Got to check Bali Airport's Domestic terminal and its colourful paintings for the first time
2. Experienced a flight seat belt with airbag for the first time.
3. The flight being too short, got very scenic view of islands and water below.
4. Got to try Lion Air for the first time
5. Realized that just like Airbus A321, Boeing 737-900 ER also has an exit row seat with super extra leg room

I've already written separate posts about #1 and #2. In this post, I am covering the rest.

#3- Scenic views from the window seat- between Lombok (LOP) and Bali (DPS)

Be sure to grab a window seat while flying between Bali and Lombok (or other destinations within Indonesia)- the views will be amazing. 

 Above: Blongas area of Lombok island

What you are seeing above are Lembongan island and Ceningan Island off Penida islands- Google map reference below. First photo of this post also depicts the same islands from another view.

Do watch this short  90 sec video of landing and take off from Bali.

Above: A screen grab from the video- Bali Mandra Toll road over Nusa Dua- view more such pics from my 2017 flight from Malindo air Window seat here.

#4 Lion Air Experience

Our flight to Lombok from Bali was too short - some 20-30 minutes. So not enough to review an airline. But from whatever we experienced, my first two Lion Air flights were great- almost on time, service was great, plane was good (I was suspecting they might deploy a smaller aircraft-even turboprop given the very short duration, but flying in 737-900 ER is more comfortable than any of the rivals - like Air Asia's A320). No food was served during the flight.

#5 The Extra Long Leg room

Lion Air  group fleet largely consists of Boeing aircrafts. The particular aircraft we flew to Lombok from Bali and back was a 737-900 ER with single class configuration. Great thing about this plane is seat number 32A and 32F, which are one row behind exit row and offer super extra leg room. I have had similar space in Air India A321 and Srilankan earlier but get to sit in similar seat of a Boeing 737 for the first time.

Malindo Air, Batik air and others also use same aircraft type- 737-900 ER but they have a dual class configuration- Business and Economy and do not have extra leg room space behind exit row like shown above- this is because Lion Air's 737-900 ER is optimized for local domestic flights with maximum seats as possible while Malindo Air/Batik Air 737-900 ERs are used for international routes that need to carry lots of food, support business class seats etc- so crew seating (jump seats) layout is different there.

On my way to Lombok from Bali, row ahead of me (31 D and E) were empty, so I was given ABP briefing. However on my way back, row 31 was occupied, so I was not given any ABP briefing. (Able Bodied Person briefing is the brief set of instructions given to passengers siting near emergency exit on how to open the door n precautions to take while opening it, if a need arises)

Malindo/Batik 737-900 ER has row 16 and 17 as exit rows. Row 17 doesn't recline and is assigned free of cost to ABPs (Able Bodied Persons) upon request while Row 16 is chargeable.

Be advised Indonesia domestic flights allow only 15 Kg check-in baggage. If you've flown to Bali with much higher allowance you will have to pay extra for domestic flight baggage check-in.

Read my detailed Bali guide here