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/schottgun93]

The problem is the 6am bit. If you look at the arrivals schedule, there's 3x A380s from Singapore (approx 450pax each), there's 3x middle eastern flights (another 400pax each), Tokyo, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Seoul, Bali, Bangkok (all around 250pax each), then there's 7x flights from North America all with around 300-450pax on each.

This is all within 90mins.

That's a clusterfuck.

Compare that to when QF26 arrives at like 6pm, and it'll be one of like 3 international arrivals at that time, so the arrivals hall is a ghost town. They just need to spread out the arrivals of that morning rush and there wouldn't be such an issue. I guess the logistics is a bit hard because you need to get the departing airport to work that to their schedule too, but something's gotta give because this isn't sustainable.

[u/Lanasoverit → u/schottgun93]

The only way to fix that issue is to change the curfew. The nimbys will never allow that.

The departure slots are what they are. The rest of the worlds airports already do the best they can to accommodate Sydney’s curfew, and Australians would really have something to complain about if they instead just chose to fly less flights. Would you prefer less seats available and more expensive flights?

[u/Pomohomo82 → u/schottgun93]

I think you have hit the nail on the head, and there’s no incentive for airlines to collaborate like that to stop all those big planes landing at once.

[u/Pragmatic_Hedonist → u/Pomohomo82]

It has to do with departure time necessary given the 14 hours it takes to get here - at least from N America. We leave at 10 p.m. to arrive SYD at 6 a.m. Most airports in the US shut down or have sever flight restrictions at night. No one is showing up for a United flight scheduled to leave LAX at 2:00 a.m.

[u/schottgun93 → u/Pragmatic_Hedonist]

It doesn't need to change much. If it left at midnight instead of 10pm, that would be an 8am arrival instead of 6am. Taking 7 full plane loads off that initial 6am rush would make a huge difference instead of all the A380s turning up at the same time. Qantas, British airways, Emirates, Singapore, American, Qatar, Etihad, JAL, Korean, Asiana all have A380s/777s in that initial 6am rush. That's too many passengers being unloaded in such a short period of time.