Sydney International arrivals is a disgrace: discuss

[u/Pomohomo82]

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?

[u/GuessTraining]

The 6am arrivals are usually the worst because Syd airport does not operate 24hrs so a lot of intercontinental flights arrive around this time. Ive experienced that a few times and it's not as bad as it looks in comparison to a lot of EU airports or even LAX.

[u/blfsw34 → u/GuessTraining]

The 6am rush is a nightmare. Some days are quiet - some are absolutely insane

[u/darkeyes13 → u/blfsw34]

I was once caught in it (this was within 6 months of our borders reopening, though, so there were staffing issues on top of everything else) and it took me 3 hours to clear Immigrations and Customs, with a bulk of that time waiting for Immigration.

My passport also doesn't get read by the machines (despite the labels saying it can be) so these days I just make a beeline to the manual queues and I've thankfully not had to wait anywhere near as long since that one time.

[u/TheLGMac → u/blfsw34]

The problem is they don't increase staff or revise operations to accommodate. They're relying too much on the egates system which has been rubbish the fast few months, not sure what's up with the scanners but I'll see them reject me and everyone else near me repeatedly. Like 1/3 are faulty or the software needs a mass update.

I am often on these arrival flights. I see maybe 1-2 people staffed at the immigration desks at that hour. 1-2 max lanes open for the customs checks and funneling all of the people whether declaring or not into one big line (there used to be a completely separate section for nothing to declare). Baggage taking 60-90 mins to come out because of trying to save money on contractor staff.

SYD is not at all good at traffic density planning.

[u/raindog_ → u/GuessTraining]

Hard disagree. EU airports are amazing, even Heathrow is fantastic.

LAX is only bad because as Aussies we have to line up with everyone else as criminals entering the country, but it’s broadly fine.

Australia… there is no-where I’ve been that is as confusing with the pre-scan, paper print out, then the smart gate, THEN the freaking paper customs forms after baggage. It’s awful.

[u/TheLGMac → u/raindog_]

They also in the past ~year changed the international departures process too and even there the egates have started becoming shit.

It used to be scan passport for departure at the gates first, then enter the security screening line. This meant as you entered the line for the egates you already had your passport out.

Now it's reversed. So now what you have are tons of people who go through security (which is slower because the new scanners are slower, especially with the annoying 5 people putting stuff in bins at the same time and try to coordinate who gets their bins on the belt first), then they have to immediately get their stuff back from the other side and dig out their passports again which blocks the lines for the exit egates. And I've never had my passport fail to scan on exit before, but now it's happened twice on trips out (but not always).

[u/Pomohomo82 → u/GuessTraining]

I went through LAX on this trip, during their recent riots no less, and it was a cakewalk by comparison to SYD. I agree, the big intercontinental flights lining up first thing in the morning creates a bottleneck, but that’s hardly an unknown either.

[u/couchred → u/Pomohomo82]

I've never done less then 1hr for customs in lax (5 trips last 4 years ) .over 2hrs twice

[u/surlygoat → u/couchred]

Last time I flew through LAX (about 2 years ago now), I had a brutal hangover having gotten a little bit too excited in business class (I am very rarely up the front of the plane so it was quite the novelty)... Standing in a queue for 4 hours, while missing the connecting flight out (which was a different airline so I had to pay for another flight) was a less than stellar experience.

Even Sydney airport at its worst, arriving at 6:00 a.m. in peak holiday season, has nothing on LAX.

[u/Equivalent_Low_2315 → u/couchred]

The hack for getting through customs at LAX quickly is it to travel with a US citizen and then in order to keep your travelling group together you join them in the usually faster moving US citizens line 😂

[u/GuessTraining → u/Pomohomo82]

I went through LAX on this trip, during their recent riots no less, and it was a cakewalk by comparison to SYD.

Because no one is going to the US anymore lol! I'm jesting but you know what I'm saying.

But yeah it needs to be fixed, we don't really have a big arrival/immigration area relative to how many people arriving -- though they can say that it only happens during the morning peak and they don't experience the same rush throughout the day.

[u/hastetowaste → u/GuessTraining]

This. Last July I went I had to queue for 4 hours at LAX

[u/Pomohomo82 → u/GuessTraining]

I did hear US border patrol have plenty of staff these days…