SYD T1 arrivals is the pits!

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Yada Yada

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Dec 6, 2004
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(subtitle: Dear Max...)

I really have had enough of SYD T1 arrivals. This morning I arrived on BA15 which touched down at approx 5:05am, 5 minutes behind QF6.

At immigration, there were two staff working the counter on the Australian residents side, and 4 on the "others" side. There were about another 8 staff happily chatting to one another behind those who were working, watching as the queues grew longer.

(BTW, while waiting in line I watched another staffer trying to help a woman with an e-Passport get through the auto-gate thingie. Hilarious :D ).

After going through immigration, I stood by the designated carousel (#10) and waited. The time was now approx 5:20am. After about 7 minutes it sparks to life and some bags begin appearing. About a dozen pieces come up the belt, then no more. Crowds are gathering right the way around the carousel. A few minutes later the BA crew come through immigration and collect their bags from the carousel.

We then stood there for another 35 minutes before bags began to come up the belt and crash into the carousel (why are these things so badly designed?) Anyway, only a few of the bags that came through first were tagged "priority". Most were not. :evil:

At least the bags were coming up in a continuous stream now, and about 10 minutes later mine finally arrived - over 50 minutes since I first stood at the carousel and almost an hour and 10 minutes since the flight arrived.

By the time my bags appeared QF2 had also arrived, so the arrivals hall was a sea of people, and the queues to go through customs were long. When I finally got to the screening point, I had to open my computer bag for inspection - the same bag that had been x-rayed in Singapore 8 hours prior. :roll:

SYD T1's arrival hall is in poor shape. On carousel 10, the two flat screen monitors at the exit end of the hall have been removed but the casings are still hanging there, there is a badly faded poster on a column nearby that looks like it was put there in the 1970's, the carousel as mentioned is antiquated and looking ragged, and there are staff circulating looking and behaving in a rude and menacing manner.

Contrast this with arrivals at SIN and KUL which are fast and efficient. I am generally out on the footpath in SIN within 15 minutes of arrival. At KUL it is about the same and this even with having to catch the monorail from the international terminal to the domestic side.

Max - your international terminal arrivals hall SUCKS! BIG TIME! It looks bad and it operates poorly. It's about time you did something about it instead of increasing your charges with no benefit to the travelling public. :x

Footnote - as I walked through the doors to the footpath to get myself a taxi, I was approached by a guy who wanted to know if I needed a taxi. :roll: Sure, I said. I'm going to Caringbah, in the south. "Oh..." he says, "I only want to go to the city." "Well then," I responded, "you are pretty stupid for asking me if I want a taxi if you won't go where I need to go. Are you going to take me or not?" "No", he said, so I responded "then you should stop soliciting". As I walked off, I was wishing that two policemen would come and arrest him for touting. :D
 
Yada Yada said:
When I finally got to the screening point, I had to open my computer bag for inspection - the same bag that had been x-rayed in Singapore 8 hours prior. :roll:
This part is understandable (the rest is poor process for SYD T1). I am certain the SIN x-ray was not looking for items prohibited for import into Australia, such as fruit, meat, dairy etc products. And I doubt the SYD x-ray folks would be concerned with finding nail files. Different process looking for different things.
 
T1 is def. not the worst.. i'd rate dublin airport the worst one..

the year 2000 was my first visit and i had noticed the arrival hall looked it was under going some sort of renovation and if one look up, there were no ceiling panels, just structs and wires seen snaking across

fast forward to the year 2005... and it still looks like same...

altho, plasmas TVs do work which is one up on the T1!! =p
 
Yada Yada,

I agree entirely with you about Syd T1 from my limited experience there. I do have to say the AA domestic arrivals at BOS was worse. Baggage off a 757 took about 90 min when I was there in Nov. Really wonderful as midnight approaches :!:
 
Each time I've arrived in T1,the baggage has turned up reasonably quickly. Annoying though with SmartGate that you end up at the baggage carousels about 10 mins before most other pax!

True, Even with F tags, the ground staff do not put them out first, but they tend to arrive fairly soon after the "staff" bags.

Oh well. Gotta make sure the staff end up at their hotel to get up to mischief that little bit sooner!
 
Yada Yada,

Last night flew from LHR-JFK and three planes arrived at the terminal gates at the same time. I waited 50 minutes just to clear immigration, and there was at least another half and hour wait behind me. Collecting bags was no problem as they had been going around for over half and hour.

Reggie
 
There is a solution ...

To ensure that your bags are waiting for you at T1 I recommend the following :-

1. Arrive early morning on a long-haul flight with 2 kiddies after a month O/S. Trying to wake them up and collect all belongings before the passengers in the rear rows stampede down the aisle is quite a challenge.

2. Spend time on a fruitless search for a trolley so that handbags and kids can be transported at a pace quicker than a tortoise. Consider commandeering a wheelchair (of which 30 are available!) and sneer at the vacant golf-buggy with no keys in the ignition. Damn!

3. Ensure that the missus has had no opportunity to pick up any duty-free, hence necessitating a diversion to DownMarket on the way through.

4. After the brief wait at the "Others" queue for passport control (generally quicker than the one for skips), locate the correct belt .... the one now three-deep in people standing hard up against edge.

5. Perform a combination of jumps and squats to try and spot your bags through the scrum, followed by a bullocking run and a terse "Get out of my way" before hopefully plotting a successful interception course. Repeat as necessary.

Now you just have to join the even longer queue to be X-rayed for food that you haven't paid duty on.


T1 is an appropriate name ... it's a bit like spending an hour battling the Terminator.


Cheers,

AC

P.S. Sorry if I cracked some shins this morning but the lack of carousel etiquitte in this country really pisses me off.
 
Re: There is a solution ...

acampbel said:
To ensure that your bags are waiting for you at T1 I recommend the following :-

1. Arrive early morning on a long-haul flight with 2 kiddies after a month O/S. Trying to wake them up and collect all belongings before the passengers in the rear rows stampede down the aisle is quite a challenge.

2. Spend time on a fruitless search for a trolley so that handbags and kids can be transported at a pace quicker than a tortoise. Consider commandeering a wheelchair (of which 30 are available!) and sneer at the vacant golf-buggy with no keys in the ignition. Damn!

3. Ensure that the missus has had no opportunity to pick up any duty-free, hence necessitating a diversion to DownMarket on the way through.

4. After the brief wait at the "Others" queue for passport control (generally quicker than the one for skips), locate the correct belt .... the one now three-deep in people standing hard up against edge.

5. Perform a combination of jumps and squats to try and spot your bags through the scrum, followed by a bullocking run and a terse "Get out of my way" before hopefully plotting a successful interception course. Repeat as necessary.

Now you just have to join the even longer queue to be X-rayed for food that you haven't paid duty on.


T1 is an appropriate name ... it's a bit like spending an hour battling the Terminator.


Cheers,

AC

P.S. Sorry if I cracked some shins this morning but the lack of carousel etiquitte in this country really pisses me off.
LMAO!!! Good post, acampbel! I did something similar back in 2002 (family trip to the LOTFAP for a month). It's something you only ever do once - the scars ensure that you don't attempt it ever again. :D
 
We went to Auckland a couple of weeks ago to visit the outlaws, Thursday afternoon QF49. I've never seen Syd check-in so empty. Arriving at AKL, we had an hour wait in the passport queue. Not much fun at all - and we still had to wait for our bags! :evil:

Apparently several flights were late, which meant 7 flights all landed at after 11pm.

On the way home, AKL check-in was totally empty, the AirNZ-pretending-to-be-Qantas check-in staff were all talking amongst themselves and didn't notice the two of us waiting :evil:

Collecting our bags in SYD happened about 15 minutes after we got off the plane. One thing that really annoys me is people who stand right up next to the belt - other people can't see if their bag is coming. However I guess that's less annoying than the airport staff in Hawaii who take bags off the belt and place them on the ground, while you're still looking at the belt waiting for your bag..

Finally.. The quarantine x-ray at SYD. They don't bother checking laptop bags. I could have had anything in there.
 
I presume you are on Australian passport. Did you use the upstairs or downstairs immigration line? Many people overlook the one upstairs and automatically head downstairs. Conversely sometimes the upstairs has a big queue but no queue downstairs.

IIRC about 7 flights arriving after 11pm is about normal for AKL. There's all the east coast Australia flights on both NZ and QF, plus likes of SQ from SIN. Taking today as an example there are 7 arrivals due after 11pm with 2 others between 10 and 11pm.
 
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