I flew in this morning on an international flight and thought I'd update the thread.But first the fine print: it was a JQ red eye so by 0520 my tolerance was very low.
Flight arrived at the aero bridge and door L1 was opened. Then nothing happened for 22 minutes. Everyone was standing in the aisles and no one from JQ communicated a reason for the delay. Eventually the flight crew changed over and the incoming captain had the good sense to make an announcement: "good morning from the flight deck, it's the incoming captain, we're going to Singapore so if you could all take your seats quickly." A few people laughed but the humour was lost on most people who just wanted to get home to bed.
He then explained that the refurbished DRW international only had one ramp up and down between departures, aero bridges and immigration. He told us that because there was a departing flight we had to wait until those passengers were clear of the walkway. What a terrible design flaw.
At Customs & immigration, one of the smart gates was broken. I guess that happens. But the delays were made worse by Customs only having 2 staff on to process the arrivals. This was made worse by passengers with young children trying to use smart gate (despite the sign saying 16 years an over) and then being given priority over those doing the right thing. It was annoying to hear someone actually encourage her children down the smart gate queue because she could see people being queue-jumped if smart gate wouldn't clear them. Time from joining the queue to clearing passport control was 35 mins.
There's still only a single baggage conveyer. It looked like the old one to me. Something went wrong with it but I couldn't see what. The result was that bags got half way around and then hit an obstacle and started piling up, falling off the conveyer. One bloke started the shift bags but it was clear he wasn't going to be able to save the day. A couple of passengers asked staff (customs, Immi and quarantine) for help but it was clear they didn't know what to do. In the end the poor guy jumped up on the conveyer out of frustration and began yelling for someone to shut it down. Wow, jumping on the conveyer like a crazy person sure gets staff attention. But really it should never have come to that.
To their credit the Quarantine staff were as efficient as ever.
The departures announcements in the customs queue were loud and clear, but why do arriving passengers need to be blasted with departure announcements. I'm not sure much thought went into the refurbishment other than "make room for more planes, we will worry about the rest later".
Time from the seatbelt sign being switched off to being completely clear and on the way to a cab... 67 minutes. Shocking given it was the only flight and I was in row 10. I hate to think how long it took the poor people in row 30.
All up a pretty poor performance and I now understand why others who have posted in this thread can't stand DRW international.
