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La Tontouta, the international airport for Noumea, New Caledonia, is located 45 km from the city and I'm having a hard time finding good information about transport options.

With two adults and two children under 12, what would be the cheapest reliable option, and how much a premium would there be to take a private transfer instead?

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There appear to be at least four ways to get from La Tontouta to Noumea:

  • Public shuttles (navette collective), meets all flights, no reservations required but apparently make many stops to let off passengers, pricing from XPF 2500 per head (Allo Transports, Navette les Mouettes)
  • Private shuttles (navettes), around XPF 3000/head, from various operators; the only one I can find with a functioning website that has pricing is Smith Voyage, who quoted XPF 9500 for our group.
  • Taxis, which have spotty availability and charge through the nose (XPF 10,000++)
  • Public bus (Carsud Ligne C), roughly hourly Mon-Sat but only two services on Sunday, fare only XPF 280. However, the airport buses terminate at Noumea's Desmazures terminal, so most visitors would need to connect to a different bus or take a taxi to get to their hotel.

In the end, we opted for car rental instead: rates from the usual suspects (Hertz, Europcar, Sixth etc) start around XPF 5000/day, meaning we could get almost four days' rental for the price of a private shuttle return. Given that getting around greater Noumea on public transport is inconvenient to impossible, this was the right choice.

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  • perhaps because the options are so suboptimal, many of the hotels include a shuttle service. Since the hotels charge per room and the shuttles per head, this may make it worthwhile to go for a slightly more expensive hotel.
    – Kate Gregory
    Commented Jun 19, 2017 at 12:07

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