Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam International, in the south-east near Plaine Magnien, is the island's only airport. Almost every visitor arrives there, most of them off a long night flight, and the drive to the coast is the last thing anyone wants to organise standing in a queue. Picking the car up at arrivals removes that problem entirely.
Why the airport handover beats a desk
There is no rental counter to find, because the handover is done by a person rather than a building. Someone from the rental business meets you in the arrivals hall, hands over the car you actually booked, and you leave.
That matters more here than it sounds. A desk handover means a queue, then a shuttle to an off-airport compound, then a second wait while the paperwork is done, then the upsell conversation. Meeting a partner at arrivals collapses all of that into a few minutes at the exit, and the car you drive away is the specific one on the listing — same make, same year, same photographs.
How meet and greet works, step by step
- Book a car whose page offers airport handover. Once the booking is confirmed, send your flight number and landing time in the chat on your trip page. The fee for the airport leg starts at Rs 500 and is stated on the car page before you book — it is a flat amount, not a per-day one.
- The rental business tracks the arrival and waits in the public arrivals hall, usually with a name board.
- You meet, they check your documents and take you out to the car — the airport car park is a short walk, not a shuttle ride.
- Together you walk around the car. This is the photo check-in: the business photographs the car from several angles, records the fuel level and the odometer reading, and both of you look at anything already marked.
- You sign the rental agreement, settle the balance due at pick-up with the business, and take the keys.
The whole thing typically takes a few minutes once you have met. The walk-around is the part worth slowing down for — see the cover guide for why.
Documents at a counter-less handover
Bring the originals of everything you uploaded to the booking: your driving licence, your passport or identity document, and the card the booking was paid with. Photographs on a phone are not documents, and a business is entitled to refuse a handover without them.
Requirements themselves are per car. Each car page states the minimum driver age and the minimum period for which the licence must have been held, and the person named on the booking must be the one who drives. If your licence was not issued in English or French, an International Driving Permit is presented alongside it. The licence and documents guide covers the detail.
Drive times from the airport
Distances look tiny on a map and take longer than they read, because most of the journey after the motorway is village road.
- North — Grand Baie, Trou aux Biches and Pereybere are around an hour and a quarter, almost all of it motorway through Port Louis.
- West — Flic en Flac and Tamarin are roughly an hour, leaving the motorway near Bambous.
- East — Belle Mare and the east coast hotels are the shortest run of the four, generally under an hour on coast roads rather than motorway.
- South and south-east — Mahebourg and Blue Bay are minutes away; Le Morne and the wild south are about an hour along the coast.
- Centre — Port Louis is under an hour, and the plateau towns around Curepipe and Moka are closer still.
Add time for the Port Louis stretch in the morning and late afternoon, when the capital's traffic backs up onto the motorway.
Late-night arrivals and delayed flights
Send your flight number in the trip chat as soon as the booking is confirmed, not just the landing time. A flight number is what lets the rental business see a delay before you can tell them about it, and most of them watch the arrivals board rather than the clock.
If your plans change while you are still travelling, message the business from your trip page — the conversation is attached to the booking, so it reaches the people who are actually coming to meet you. Late-night handovers are common here, given when long-haul flights land, but whether a particular business will do one, and until when, is its own arrangement rather than an island-wide rule. Ask before you book if your flight lands in the small hours.
Returning the car at SSR
The return is the handover in reverse, and it happens in the airport car park at the time agreed on the booking. The business does the photo check-out — the same angles, the fuel level, the odometer — and that is the end of the rental.
Two practical points. Leave more time than you think: dropping a car takes fifteen minutes if nothing is odd, and you still have check-in ahead of you. And plan the fuel. Cars here are normally handed over full and expected back full, with the policy for each car stated on its page; the last fuel station before the airport is the sensible stop rather than a detour once you are already there.
The alternative: delivery to your hotel
Airport handover is not the only way to start. Many businesses deliver the car to a hotel, villa or address inside their own radius for a flat amount shown on the car page, and on some listings that amount is zero. The hotel delivery guide goes through the radius, the handover at the door and the return leg.
That is the better choice if you are being collected by your hotel anyway, if you are arriving very late and would rather not drive an unfamiliar road tired, or if you only want the car for part of a longer stay. Booking the car from the second day instead of the first is a common way to save a day's rate — the cars around Grand Baie, for example, can be delivered to a hotel the next morning where the business offers delivery.
If you do want to drive straight out, the airport page lists the cars set up for meet and greet, and the south-east zone page covers the area around the terminal itself. For most couples a compact car is enough — it takes two cases, it parks anywhere on the island, and it is the cheapest thing to fuel.