A couple of recent experiences with the
express system capped off with my last arrival on Sunday 24th August:
- The last two time I have used MEL First checkin, I have been given both departure and arrival express cards.
- Inbound in WHY for my more recent flights; I was not given an express card. They were only handed the passes out to J pax.
- Since June I have always been x-rayed, express card or not.
Now for last Sunday week; landing around 8:10pm two hours delayed on QF134; pulling up beside a just landed QF30 unloading baggage. There ware also aircraft arrivals from Emirates, Malaysia and Thai air lines. When I reached the immigration hall, there would have been over a thousand people queued up ... these queues wound out past the configurable "tape" aisles and 50 metres up beside the duty free.
On the left part of the immigration there were two special queues,:
- Far left: Aircrew/APEC
- To the right of that: express.
Smartgate was closed for renovations.
The aircrew queued was full up; some 50-60 people in crew uniform waiting in single file stretching out past the end.
I could see no-one in the
express queue; but it did have a right turn down the end. I follwed, walking down past the aircrew; when I reached the end and turned right I found I was behind four people. (2 in wheelchairs) The
express pass was a godsend; I only had to wait a few minutes.
Then I proceeded down to the baggage hall; there were as many people there as were queued in immigration.
Here I found the use for the
express passes past immigration has diminished.
The only direct outs were a few PAX picked out and given a green stamp while queued/awaiting luggage in the manner mentioned earlier in this thread.
In the centre of the baggage hall, there were two queues about 40 metres long stretching up between the middle baggage carousels before vaguely washing up against the steps coming down from the immigration hall.
As I had no checked luggage I approached one of the roaming officers and asked about the
express card. I was told to join the right of the two queues between the carousels. There were about 50 people in front of me with this queue before arriving at a point where there were two staff assessing each PAX as they came down; being sent to "queues" 1, 2, 3, 4 or straight out!
I was sent to #4 on the right which had another queue about 30 PAX long before some additional x-ray machines had been located. I had used one of these about two weeks earlier when I was on the the PX arriving. I was able to keep my
express pass.
Queue #1 leads to secondary screening where baggage is searched and I could see it was about half full with ~50 people in it heading off to the left. Queues 2 & 3 were crammed with people heading slowly off to the left beyond the #1 queue, down to the end, back up a bit and around the corner into the x-ray hall.
All were bing assessed; as I turned to #4, behind me there were three Qantas flight crew together, one was sent straight out, another was sent to queue #4 and another was sent to aisle #2 (she looked Shocked).
I was finally out and heading to the SkyBus at 9:45pm ...
The whole process took over ½ an hour, more than six times what it took earlier last month.
I was certainly thankful for the
express card as I saved me at least another ¾ hour.
