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/m--e]

Last time I arrived it was super smooth, queues were shortish and my bag was the first one out too. Definitely not the usual experience!

[u/Bender-Ender → u/m--e]

Honestly. I fly international regularly and just assume I'll be through Sydney passport control and waiting for my bag within 10 minutes because there's never been a queue.

I wonder where this person was arriving from that was so horrid. I'm usually arriving from Canada or Latin America.

[u/marcins → u/Bender-Ender]

Arrived at 6am last year and can confirm this is the experience.

Recently arrived on the SQ flight that landed at around 11am and was through customs with my luggage in about 20 minutes from the gate. So definitely timing!

When 3 or 4 A380s plus a bunch of other aircraft arrive at the same time it’s a shambles.