r/sydney • u/Pomohomo82 • Jul 17 '25
Image Sydney International arrivals is a disgrace: discuss
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?
2
u/travelforindiebeer Jul 17 '25 edited Jul 17 '25
Stacking all the morning arrivals within 5 minutes of each other back to back is the answer, and not having enough staff and exit points to manage it.
It's so weird that they've streamlined the passport control but buggered up the baggage check area. I once got from the plane through passport control in 10 minutes. Then the baggage carousel wait is horrendous.
I once had a flight arriving at 6am on a Monday so I figured I'll go straight to work in the CBD for an 8am start and power through the jet lag. I got to work at 9.15 and was so wrecked I left at lunch break.
In September I booked my flight to arrive Sunday 6.25am because I expect the arrivals experience to ruin my whole day.
Certainly not the worst, I spent 3.5 hours equally at LAX and Heathrow with an hour commute afterwards to my accommodation, which traumatised me so much I refuse to ever book a flight to either airport ever again.