Early-morning chaos in Sydney

[Timtammi]

We did the SYD INT to DOm transfer coming off QF108 from LAX this morning connecting through to MEL and I agree, what a nightmare!

We were very lucky really with the way we managed to get through but I pity many others who would have had much longer queue waits than we did.

The flight arrived late from LAX and we were advised onboard that those transferring the the MEL flight we were booked on would be rebooked on a later flight. We were in Y+ - op-up from Y so were off pretty promptly. Bags came quickly and Mr Timtammi was trying to scout where the customs queue started (NEVER seen one like it, it seemed to snake everywhere!) when a customs officer approached me, asked a few questions and stamped our cards to let us go throught the fast exit yellow door - yippee! Then the queue for the transit check-in which got much worse by the time we had also waited for the bus. We were just lucky that we were ahead of the worst of the queue thanks the customs official. Then the flight we were rebooked on couldnt take off for over half an hour after the scheduled time due to waiting for pax transferring from INT flights - surprise, surprise...

This is a shambles as has been posted by everyone else..

They really should do something about it, I was embarrassed.

Cheers

 

[jgm]

There is a simple solution - fly direct LAX-MEL

 

[laffer]

Coupled with a very long and slow quarantine queue and (potentially) rude immigration and quarantine officers, it certainly gives a terrible impression to tourists.

I've had far better experience arriving into third world countries than Australia to be honest. Australia still rates as my worst arrival experience of any country (and I'm an Australian citizen).

I hate the arrival into Sydney airport and I am an Aussie Citizen as well.

I understand and support the role of Quarantine but there behaviour is often appaling.

I think the quarantine form is ridiculous. They make no attempt to translate it into other languages from what I can tell and then make a song and dance when someone from a non english speaking background ticks one of the wrong boxes.

 

[hedge]

I hate the arrival into Sydney airport and I am an Aussie Citizen as well.

I understand and support the role of Quarantine but there behaviour is often appaling.

I think the quarantine form is ridiculous. They make no attempt to translate it into other languages from what I can tell and then make a song and dance when someone from a non english speaking background ticks one of the wrong boxes.

It is translated. I got one in Malay the other day.

 

[browski]

On a similar note, I often find that the early morning Intl flight arrivals into Perth is equally slow and have often missed the domestic connection.

The problem, it seems to me, are the passengers. It is obvious that the airport staff are not expecting passengers to come off the arriving flights. Numerous studies have shown that passengers just lead to airport inefficiency. If the airlines could just keep the passenger numbers down then I think the whole problem would just go away.

 

[NM]

Well outbound at SYD T1 this morning was a breeze. One person in front of me me at immigration (APEC/Crew queue, but other queues were very short). One person in front of me at security screening. That was around 8am.

My longest wait was for two people at the F check-on counters.

Yes, I know its a very diff story for arrivals. I have an early am SYD T1 arrival coming up in Sept and not looking forward to it. But my fears of queues outbound on a Monday morning at SYD were not warranted. Made it to the Eggs Benedict in almost record time.