LST - LAUNCESTON AIRPORT

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Launceston Airport by A Kattula

17 October 2007   Customer Rating :

Flew into Launceston on Jetstar fro Melbourne. Disembarked via stairs at both front and rear. Fairly quick. Quarantine officer checks for fruit as leaving secure area. Major car firms have desks at each end - note AVIS is clearly the most popular. Queue had 10 people in it whilst no one at Hertz and others! Bags took 20 minutes - staff appear to load outgoing flight before bringing bags to terminal. Out of terminal in about half an hour. Retunrn flight checked in at 6.15pm for 8.10 flight on a Tuesday night. Nobody else in Jetstar/Qantas area so check in simple and quick. Car return desks staffed at Virgin end of terminal. Noted area was being set up for Tiger Airways who had just announced flights from Launceston to Melbourne. There is a cafe/bar/shop area in middle of terminal offering usual airport food and souvenirs etc. Upstairs area was roped off as weel as stairs to a lower floor. Toilets are all outside secure area and were clean. Nobody goes into secure area until near boarding time and security arent even in place until about 40 minutes before. Security polite and efficient. Boarding quick via both front and rear stairs. Overall airport is well suited to cope with current demand. Will be interesting to see if there is any congestion when Tiger starts next month. Would like to see a play area created for children as there were a few travelling and a toilet provided in secure area again for benefit of children.

Launceston Airport by Ron Villagracia

29 January 2007   Customer Rating : n/a

Launceston's airport is rather small, with two distinct gate areas, one for Qantas/JetStar, the other for Virgin Blue. On the plus side, it means relatively short queues and a short walk from the plane to the parking lot. The secure area is glass-walled from the non-secure area, so non-passengers can still watch their friends and loved ones get on that plane, something you can't do at many airports today.On the minus side, it means a lot of things we take for granted at other airports are missing. There are no jetways, so boarding is the old fashioned way via stairs. A minus in poor weather and for those with physical ailments, it can be a plus depending on airline and aircraft as you can board via two doors simultaneously. There's only one small cafe, and I don't recall any shops if you want a last-minute souvenir of your Tasmanian holiday. Another minus is that like many of its bigger cousins, the rental car facilities are off-airport, and not onsite like you'd expect for a small airport. While the major chains like Hertz, Avis, Budget, etc. all have counters within the terminal, their offices are located on the main road into town. When dropping off my Hertz car (I rented it at Hobart), the clerk who accepted my car also drove me in the same car to the terminal! I'm not sure if it's the same for incoming passengers, or if a shuttle bus exists like at other airports with off-airport rental car offices. A really big minus is that because the airport dates back to a more innocent period in air travel, the toilets (as well as everything else) are outside the secure area, with none inside. I got there real early, and noticed that people didn't enter the secure area until starting about 30 minutes before their flights. However, that causes the non- secure area to get quite crowded at times. Again, due to the low passenger numbers, security queues are relatively short compared to large airports.

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