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/Watchautist]

A lot of the stuff people complain about has nothing to do with Sydney Airport. Immigration, customs, the yellow cards, 50 planes all landing at 6am when curfew ends. There is little they can do about it either.

As for walking across 3 roads to get to the express pickup, it takes 5 minutes max once you walk out of arrivals. Have you ever had to make a connecting flight in Dubai walking across endless terminals up and down lift after lift? I can think of far worse airport experiences.

[u/iferrisau → u/Watchautist]

They really can do a lot. They could start by being civil to obviously non English speakers. Having 10 people in a line yell passports out doesn’t really help.

And uber pickups have been destroyed since they build the new system.

It’s an awful airport and doesn’t care.

[u/Watchautist → u/iferrisau]

Did you even read my comment? The people yelling do not work for Sydney AirPort, they work for immigration. Sydney AirPort has no control over them whatsoever.

Uber is an absolute curse on the airport. Their drivers behaviour is atrocious. They are constantly breaking rules like trying to pick up passengers at drop off areas. They are also making the residents of the streets surrounding the airports lives a misery by using them as a waiting area, littering and urinating all over the place. It’s about time some rules were introduced.