A word of warning: it is best to avoid a long layover in Dar Es Salaam if connecting between two airlines. We ended up sitting on a hard bench for several hours waiting for our transit boarding pass.
We arrived at 9pm with a connection at 3:35am, hoping we could just wait in the business class lounge during the extended layover. Instead, we sat for 3.5 hours on a hard bench without internet or power.
We stepped off our “domestic” flight from Zanzibar and followed the signs for transit, which led us down a dimly-lit hallway and eventually just emptied us out at the airport entrance! After clearing security to gain access to the check-in area, we saw (not surprisingly) that no one had arrived at the Turkish desk yet.
If connecting from an international to an international flight, DAR does have a “transit desk” but we would have run into the same issue. Rather than an agent actually printing out boarding passes, the transit desk is just someone who takes your passports, proceeds to your airline’s check-in desk, and prints out your boarding pass.
Problem solved with online check-in, right? Wrong.
I checked in online and we had boarding passes on our phone, but those were not accepted. Upon trying to clear immigration to return to the departures hall we were directed back to the Turkish desk and told to get paper boarding passes.
So we waited. And waited.
Three hours prior to our flight the Turkish team showed up. Immediately, two dozen passengers ran over to check-in. We finally obtained our boarding pass and were able to stamp out of Tanzania, clear security again, and head upstairs to the lounge.
CONCLUSION
An annoying transit to be sure, not least because the benches were so uncomfortable in the check-in area, but we made it. My only advice is try to keep your layovers 3hrs or less in Dar Es Salaam.
Do you have any sense how similar or different the international to domestic transfer process is? Is the lounge accessable from the domestic gates or do you have to be stamped out to visit it?
I tried to distinguish between the two in my post. Theoretically, international transit would not have required stamping in or re-clearing security, but the same issue with being too early for check-in would have applied.
The lounge is only available beyond passport control.
I am going to be transferring through Dar es Salaam on my way from Kenya back to the United States. Do you think I will need a Tanzanian visa? Who do you think I should ask?
You won’t need one if you are doing an international to international transfer.
I am looking to book a flight back to the States from the airport in Kilimanjaro. I am very concerned about the hour and ten minute connection time in the DAR airport though. Do you know if I’ll have to go through customs and recheck my luggage during this connection?
Where are you connecting from? Is everything on one ticket?
Mr Matthew
i support what you say concerning Dar es salaam port. current we use two terminals , one for private flights and the other for commercial (terminal ii,) which is too small terminal and some times it over crowd because domestics and international passengers use the same terminal . The government is trying very hard to accomplish the mega terminal iii before the end of this year(2019) they are in final phase . We know challenges you faced but i assure you and other guests that 2019 all challenges wont happen again because the new terminal has ability to receive 7 flights per time also large flights like swiss, klm ,Qatar,Fly Emirates, Ethiopian,Kenyan ,Air Tanzania and others will have lounges and to all transit i assure you this terminal will have everything include super markets and bar,restaurants. According to their plan terminal ii will be renovated and used for domestic flights…….. i WELCOME YOU all the land of Kilimanjaro