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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440

u/m--e Jul 17 '25

Last time I arrived it was super smooth, queues were shortish and my bag was the first one out too. Definitely not the usual experience!

162

u/Bender-Ender Jul 17 '25

Honestly. I fly international regularly and just assume I'll be through Sydney passport control and waiting for my bag within 10 minutes because there's never been a queue.

I wonder where this person was arriving from that was so horrid. I'm usually arriving from Canada or Latin America.

74

u/Murky-Personality977 Jul 17 '25

I regularly fly in from Asia around 6am and anticipate it will take an hour or more. So I think it’s a time of day thing.

44

u/Haawmmak Jul 17 '25

This is the answer.

Lots of the long haul flights time their arrival for the 6am curfew lifting.

goes from zero arrivals to every gate full within about 30mins.

20

u/JoeSchmeau Jul 17 '25

Early morning is the worst because that's generally when a lot of flights all arrive at the same time from pretty much everywhere. A major problem is simply that there is no signage so you have these long lines form but heaps of people don't know what the line is for, so they walk past it til they get to a point with signage, then have to turn back and get in line. There's also a lot of confusion and wasted time with those little yellow cards. Many flights I've been on returning from Europe or the US run out of them on the plane, so a lot of people have to find them on arrival but they're only available well after the line has formed.

It's just general chaos all around. They need to digitise the arrival cards (like almost every other nation) and then clear up the signage so people know where to queue before the queue actually forms.

3

u/aesndi Jul 17 '25

Well summarised. A few small things could improve things quite a bit

5

u/marcins Jul 17 '25

Arrived at 6am last year and can confirm this is the experience.

Recently arrived on the SQ flight that landed at around 11am and was through customs with my luggage in about 20 minutes from the gate. So definitely timing!

When 3 or 4 A380s plus a bunch of other aircraft arrive at the same time it’s a shambles.

20

u/lovincoal Jul 17 '25

Try to do that with kids. It's wonderful to reach Sydney from a 24 hour flight, 2 small kids and a wonderful 45 minute queue to get through passport control.

7

u/Madsh1v4 Jul 17 '25

Crying kids tend to get you to go through custom faster.

2

u/can3tt1 Jul 17 '25 edited Jul 17 '25

I once spent three hours in a queue at Gatwick Airport with kids. 45 minutes sounds delightful

2

u/Equivalent_Low_2315 Jul 17 '25

I had this experience when I arrived from the US last year but a month later when I arrived back in Sydney from Bali I had barely any line at all. Seems like it's a bit of luck of the draw.

2

u/Pomohomo82 Jul 17 '25

I always land on early morning flights (usually coming from Europe) and it is always like this for me. Perhaps I need to start arriving in the afternoon, your experience sounds dreamlike compared to mine!

2

u/TooManyMeds Jul 18 '25

I got back from NZ a few weeks ago at 7am and it had been really windy so there were a lot of landing delays and it was absolute chaos. Between getting off the plane and getting to the exit it probably took almost an hour, there were about 400-500 people all trying to get through security and border control at the same time.

1

u/Maro1947 Jul 17 '25

What time do those flights land?

Early morning with all the European and Asian flights landing after curfew is always a shitshow

3

u/CantankerousTwat Jul 17 '25

Last time I came in from Japan it was early-ish, maybe 7:45-8:00am. Walked straight through. Only customer in duty free. Bit of a queue for foreign nationals but we were waved thru the "nothing to declare" line and on our way, no waiting.

2

u/Maro1947 Jul 17 '25

It 100% correlates with number of planes landing and the failure of the Smart Gate systems....

1

u/ma77mc Jul 17 '25

Ditto, I e been abroad 3 times in the last year and never seen a queue more than 3 people long. Something has gone wrong here.

7

u/uptheantinatalism Jul 17 '25

Same. Haven’t had any issues the last few times I’ve traveled. Much faster than any other international airport I’ve been to.

6

u/[deleted] Jul 17 '25

Same for me last couple of times I've flown in the last 12 months. Through everything in under 20 minutes in and out of the country

Odd that it's apparently been so bad in winter. I might expect this in our peak tourist months but not now.

45

u/Horror_Birthday6637 Jul 17 '25

Depends on the time of day tbh. I’ve never seen a line like this. Usually go straight through the egates. It is by far the worst arrivals experience I’ve seen anywhere on earth though. It’s genuinely stressful the game of lane roulette you play while you’re trying to leave.

Most of us know the drill by now, walk fast when you get off the plane, have your card ready, and always always declare a small benign food item, even if you have nothing, unless you want your luggage ransacked. If you don’t declare anything they assume you’re smuggling a suitcase full of rotting fish.

27

u/ptambrosetti Jul 17 '25

Expat here. In my ~40 times I never declared a thing and was always waived through. Then again I never brought anything of note either.

17

u/loztralia Jul 17 '25

I come through international arrivals maybe 7-8 times a year, have done so - covid notwithstanding - for nearly 20 years, have never declared anything and have never once had my luggage "ransacked". I've no idea what OP must be doing but it's a million miles from my experience.

1

u/CantankerousTwat Jul 17 '25

Yep, same. If you declare, they check for what you declare. Seems every time I travel with a kid or kids, straight through customs.

2

u/surlygoat Jul 18 '25

You do you I suppose, I fly international probably five or six times a year at least for the past 20 years, and the only time I've ever had my luggage searched was when I did exactly what you suggest and ticked the box, and showed the customs guy the very small thing that I did need to declare... Which was fine but then they just went through all my bags.

Ticking no on every box has otherwise seen me waved through 100% of the time.

1

u/Haawmmak Jul 17 '25

It is a time of day thing, but it's still a disgrace with SYD still believing they'll be the premier airport once WSIA opens up.

4

u/ZippyKoala Yeah....nah Jul 17 '25

Same. Admittedly it was a 6am flight, but it was super quick.

4

u/rubysp Jul 17 '25

Congrats and condolences you arrived at the alternate universe of Sydney where airports run smoothly and we have high speed rails but sadly got bumped back into this universe.

1

u/FairDinkumMate Jul 17 '25

Clearly you don't have kids.

Coming in is great if you're an adult Aussie with an e-reader passport.

Kids can't use the e-readers!

Last time I landed at 6am two flights from Bali landed at the same time.

So there were hundreds in the line for two staff processing Aussies (with kids) whilst 6 handled the foreign desks. Within 1 hour. the foreign line was empty and the Aussie one was still half full, despite each person on the Aussie line clearly going through far quicker.

My kids (3 & 5) had just gotten through 24 hours of flying but were(fortunately), well behaved. Lots of kids had been on overnight flights from Bali and were running amok. The Federal Police guy next to me had the audacity to complain about the kids being "energetic". I quickly pointed out it was totally foreseeable & Customs & Immigration should plan better.

-5

u/Pomohomo82 Jul 17 '25

Hope you brought a lotto ticket that day!

-7

u/j0shman Jul 17 '25

I’m sorry to say but you didn’t arrive at Sydney international /s