A mate of mine had the same last Friday, I think he said they got there about 3pm.
They are still used in Brisbane and Melbourne, likely the staff are unaware Sydney has done their own thing now.
That is up to the airlines. For example Qantas gives it to platinum/oneworld emerald/business and first class. Some airlines like Virgin and Singapore airlines give it to gold status holders as well.
“Arrivals” Express “Lanes” at SYD pretty much went the way of the dodo even before Covid. Immigration, it was quicker to use a kiosk but for ineligible PPs there was a priority lane between the large manual processing cattle run (decades since I went there) and the Smartgates. I don’t recall seeing that a few weeks ago but they were in the middle of rolling out new kiosks and signage.
We didn’t get one for MEL earlier this year. We were in business, but the express lane was marked ‘first/busimess class’ rather than ‘express’.
A couple of weeks ago the F/J security line was empty but the smartgates were the problem, only one smart gate was dedicated to F/J and that new area with security before immigration doesn't have enough gates yet, this will change once the whole area is done but for now it's a bit of a mess.
They’ve possibly opened more (and more to come when the last bit is finished). I entered from the general PAX / Crew end from CX checkin and there was a F/J line immediately first up and at least 6 Smartgates operating.
Brisbane has express path for departures security, arrivals immigration (manned counter only on the far left) and arrivals quarantine (they have one exit for express path/crew/short domestic connections and then the other for all other passengers).
