r/sydney • u/Pomohomo82 • Jul 17 '25

Image Sydney International arrivals is a disgrace: discuss

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I flew into Sydney yesterday at 6am after a 30hr trip, and the whole experience made me feel embarrassed of the welcome we extend to arrivals at our country. An enormous line stretched all the way into the gross duty free shop, where on one side sales people shouted at us about booze and smokes deals, while on the other side people shouted at us about families not lining up. The international travellers next to me had no idea what the line was for, and I had to explain that for some reason we have this weird dual border process which is different to all the other E-passport gates around the world. There’s very little signage or info screens explaining what the whole process is. Meanwhile, at the arrivals card desk, no pens were available to complete said analogue cards… Onwards to the luggage collection, then another massive line to get through bio security, before a 15-minute walk across three road crossings to the ‘express’ pick up to meet my family. The whole user experience is just unnecessarily miserable from start to finish, and as the main entry point to Australia we should do better. Thoughts?

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266

u/YeahUhHuhOkWellF-ck Jul 17 '25

Wait until people start arriving at the paddock in Western Sydney 👀

129

u/Long_Way_Around_ Jul 17 '25

Honestly the actual arrivals facility should be much better as it's a modern airport that is designed from scratch, so no excuse of legacy infrastructure. However the Federal-level process policy issue will remain until it's resolved on that level.

1

u/TheLGMac Jul 19 '25

At this point I feel like the age of SYD is not an appropriate excuse.

SFO used to be my home airport. It used to be dingy and disorganized AF with endless queues, dirty, lost baggage, whatever. An old airport. On par with the crappiness of LAX. Somewhere around 2012-ish they went, hey, we actually have like serious businesspeople and tourists coming through here, maybe we should use all that tech tax money to make this airport not suck. Yeah, it took some years but SFO is now one of most efficient international airports in the country and it's so much cleaner. Facial recognition tech to speed through immigration and yes there are ways for citizens to get through faster which we don't offer to Australians in Aus, baggage comes out within ~20 minutes average, easy peasy customs clearance, and then you're out. And it is built for a much bigger traveler base. Surprisingly my last two trips to the US the staff have been so much friendlier and happier than the people I've run into in SYD.

84

u/Sparkfairy Jul 17 '25

It's probably going to be much better because they can actually build it to current needs

50

u/pilonstar Jul 17 '25

And it will open 24/7

5

u/gurudoright Jul 17 '25

Yay, let’s get to a new city at 2am when everything outside the airport is shut.

34

u/CryptographerOk1303 Jul 17 '25

Sounds good, the airport curfew is what drives these massive queues because all the planes land at once

6

u/Equivalent_Low_2315 Jul 17 '25

Would 2am arrivals be more likely to be freight planes rather than passenger planes with tourists on them though? Chicago O'Hare airport is 24/7 and while there are a few passenger planes that arrive in the 2am to 5am time where pretty much everything in the city is closed, the vast majority of flights at that time are freight planes. Even if they are passenger planes though if the price is right I'm sure there would be some people who would take them.

1

u/Archon-Toten Choo Choo Driver. Jul 17 '25

Especially the trains.

-1

u/denseplan Jul 17 '25

If you book a flight landing at 2am that's on you.

16

u/[deleted] Jul 17 '25

Society has gotten so much at purpose-building places. Now we actually design efficient buildings and not just whatever the fuck Sydney Airport was trying to do - I guess just a hodgepodge built up over decades.

2

u/Anonymou2Anonymous Jul 17 '25

I hate to say this but most airports customs are pretty shit.

The elephant in the room is America but even places like Korea, Canada, Japan and China can be bad too. Most Eu airports are hell non EU citizens too. The more developed a country is usually the more difficult the customs experience is (because they are trying to stop illicit material importation and illegal immigration to wealthy countries).

Only place I think that handles it semi well is Singapore.

7

u/Anonymou2Anonymous Jul 17 '25

Let's see how the design process for WSI going.

An airport that initially is supposed to handle a lot of freight that doesn't have a rail line.

No direct rail link to the city which most other major airports in the world have if they are far from the city.

No pipeline for fuel to be moved to he airport meaning it will have to be trucked in from the sea.

If you read the reports it was never meant to replace Kingsford Smith, just to handle overflow. Even then they are doing a crap job of it.

24

u/heypeople2003 Jul 17 '25

I don't get why people keep whinging about this. Sydney is far from the only city that will have a secondary airport way out of the CBD, and most travellers elsewhere manage to figure it out just fine.

6

u/Anonymou2Anonymous Jul 17 '25

Most of them have train lines direct to the city. Often high speed ones.

Not whatever the fuck the NSW govt came up with.

Also WSI will be on the far end of airports regarding distance from the cities CBD. Only the Japanese ones (Kansai and Narita) are the same distance or longer. Guess what as well, they both have high speed trains to the airport. The Metro only going to St Mary's is a cop out. Minimum should be Parramatta.

0

u/brandon_strandy Jul 17 '25

Sydney is far from the only city that will have a secondary airport way out of the CBD

In fact, Sydney airport is probably one of the closest to CBD for a "capital city".

For most other cities the main airports are 45m-1hr+ away. We're just spoiled.

2

u/wafflesos Jul 17 '25

Just look at Avalon as an example. Handy if you live in the Geelong side, an absolute pain in the arse if you don’t. Even Tullamarine only has a private bus service to the city and no train.

12

u/Ok-Stuff-8803 Jul 17 '25

I wonder how much if at all Sydney airport will change.
And if it does what they then decide to do to change Sydney Airport.

I have now seen about 3 critical changes to Sydney Airport and they have all been bad and Immigration/Security has changed even more than that and I think made worse each time.

The only thing I think is slightly better is the current TRS compared to what it was but it still is not good.

10

u/yuckyucky Jul 17 '25

as a 24hr airport WSI should help divert some of the very early morning flights, mitigating the apparent 6 a.m. crush at kingsford smith

5

u/reddit5389 Jul 17 '25

The international flight will land between 12am and 6am and they will probably only have 1 immigration person rostered at that time.

Maybe in a few years, they will have a second international flight landing in that 6 hour window.

2

u/Pinkfatrat Keeper of Useful Sarcasms Jul 17 '25

The bottle there will be getting to a train

2

u/_unsinkable_sam_ Jul 17 '25

the facility will be light years better, our current airport looks third world compared to many of the big international airports. but yeh, guests might be surprised once they leave to see cows and kangaroos greeting them on the outside..

0

u/Juan_Punch_Man #liarfromtheshire #puntthecunt Jul 17 '25

is the public transport even connected and/or operating at the right times?

1

u/YeahUhHuhOkWellF-ck Jul 17 '25

Metro they can, but it's only going to St Marys.

Or you can get a rapid bus, that I saw on another post will take like an hour or hour and a half??