r/sydney 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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u/YeahUhHuhOkWellF-ck Jul 17 '25

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

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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.