We've just air freighted our bike in to Jakarta, Indonesia. But not picked it up yet. Unfortunately the shipping agent we are dealing with has never heard of a Carnet before and keeps talking about import tax and import permit license, etc... All of things things should be non issues with the Carnet. I guess it is not so common to import through the air like this and most people probably do land or sea entry.

Can anyone point us to an experienced shipping/import agent whose services we can use?

Or any advice from people who have air freighted their bike in to Jakarta before.

No personal experience from Jakarta... but I did meet a German biker, who´d first freighted his bike from Japan to Taiwan, and did not get the bike in there, so he freighted it onwards to Jakarta by air. Only to have it stuck in the customs there, too!! He was actually in Bali, when we met, and the situation had stayed the same for several weeks. He even had the carnet, but said they still demand from him ´a recommendation letter from the United Nations´! I don´t know, if he finally got the bike in or not.

So yeah, I´m afraid it could be a handful. But this was 4 years ago, so things might have changed. Hoping it´ll work out easier for you!

Hi Bokad,

I used this company to ship out of Indonesia September 2011 back to Europe. Maybe they can help. I found them on Horizons and they did a good job exporting. Can't answer on import.

JKT-Trie.Ismawarni <trie.ismawarni@yamindo.com>

Good luck

Chris

BLUF: Went to the airport ourselves at 1530 on Friday. Had bike in hand by 1000 Saturday.

I'm now convinced that the local agent our air freight shipper referred us to was completely useless. Every day we called he said that their guy was working on it and there was some problem with customs and that we should have gotten prior approval for import and that they would update us. But every day no update. Seemed they weren't familiar with a Carnet even though they said they were.

This went on for 3 days without progress. I was afraid to F things up by getting involved (two fingers pushing the buttons at once) but finally I got impatient and went to the airport cargo area myself. There's about 10 buildings with 20 offices each, lots of queues and service windows, and a couple thousand people. We really had no clue where to start. While standing around and looking clueless we were picked up by a couple of local fixers/agents. Local fixers are always going to scam you a bit. At worse they can be clueless idiots that do nothing to help the situation or make it worse. At best they can be highly effective weasels and masters of "the system". I feel we got lucky with these ones. I have no idea what they actually did but it involved alot of walking between buildings and offices, tons of photocopies, forms, etc... There were seemingly long queues in alot of the places but we never had to wait very long. We came at 1530 on Friday and I was expecting to get very little done and to have to wait till Monday to really do anything. By 1700 Friday the fixers had walked us through damn near everything and all we had to do was come back on Saturday morning for final customs inspection (open the crate, etc...). By 1000 Saturday morning we were leaving the airport with bike in hand. I'm impressed. The total cost (paid to the fixers) was USD $100. They hit us up $50 the first day and as expected want more for other "fees" the second day. All BS of course and I'm sure with better negotiating I could have gotten it for less. $100 is ALOT of money here but they did walk us through everything super fast and I was glad to have the bike.

The name of the HELPFUL airport fixer/agent is:
Arlizan (ARY)
+62 (0) 813 1991 7852
Gusnira Cargo
Branch Office (at Jakarta Airport) +62 (0) 21 55910981
Head Office (Jakarta City) +62 (0) 21 55963013

The name of the USELESS agent is:
harley@nurindolog.com
HARLEY
MANAGING DIRECTOR
WCA LOGISTICS
AS AGENT PT NURINDO LOGISTICS
Nurindo Opening Website
JL JEND SUPRAPTO ITC CEMPAKA MAS BLOK M NO 21 JAKARTA 10640 INDONESIA T 6221
42886869 F 6221 42886838 M 081511252531/08176826032/081211655573