Waiting, waiting, waiting at SYD (and MEL) arrival immigration?

[RooFlyer]

This may be part of the reason.

Australia’s border shame, as Sydney Airport reveals 32 smart kiosks are sitting in storage

Australia’s biggest gateway has revealed it has 32 “smart” kiosks sitting in storage because Border Force has not been able to install them, resulting in ongoing delays for international arrivals at Sydney Airport.

Speaking on the topic of “seamless borders” at the Australian Airports Association conference on the Gold Coast on Tuesday, Sydney Airport chief executive Scott Charlton lamented the slow pace of technological enhancements to immigration.

While airports in Dubai and Bali used facial recognition allowing travellers to simply walk through, in Australia most arrivals were still required to fill out a paper card and queue up for a kiosk or immigration officer.

Melbourne Airport CEO Lorie Argus said a decade on, they still had the same number of kiosks (17) but 50 per cent more international travellers.

“It’s unfortunate that we have 32 kiosks sitting in a room right next to where people are coming,” Mr Charlton told the conference.

“They’re sitting there waiting to be used.

“They’ve been there for a while but we can’t plug them in at this point in time. It’s a long story.”

Mr Charlton said they would have to ask Border Force for more staff to help process international arrivals with numbers continuing to grow at a faster rate than domestic travellers.

 

[Mattg]

I arrived in SYD this morning and there were enough Smartgates to process everyone quite quickly. I actually thought to myself that it had improved since my last morning arrival at SYD T1.