MELBOURNE AIRPORT   Passenger Reviews and Customer Opinions

MELBOURNE AIRPORT customer review :  22 March 2010 by F Pang   (Qatar)

Customer Rating :  2/5

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I have been travelling through MEL several times but find that this airport is poorly designed for international transfers after a recent experience. I'm not talking about transit on the same flight (i.e. disembark, security check & re-embark, like EK flights from/to AKL), but rather transfers from one flight to another (within the same terminal). I was travelling from AKL on EK for a connecting flight to DOH on QR. There were no transit desk facilities in the terminal. I later found out from a shop assistant that I had to check-in the connecting flight at the gate directly. This was a different (primitive) practice from most other airports like HKG, SIN, PVG, DXB, etc. Two problems: firstly, ground staff only starts working at the gate probably 1 hour before departure, so PAX would have to wait until that time for check-in. For fully-booked flights they might be at risk of being denied onboard owing to late checkin. For premium PAX, their privilege of accessing lounges was taken simply because they could not get a borading pass until last minute. The second problem was that there were no signpostss, no helpdesk to give transfer PAX any guidances. If this is one of AUS's main airports and there are international transfer PAX then you should provide sufficient guidance. I'd not recommend MEL airport for international transfers unless ones are frequent travellers and know what to do.

MELBOURNE AIRPORT customer review :  17 February 2010 by L Pulliam   (USA)

Customer Rating :  4/5

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Found Melbourne airport a breeze to get in and out of. Immigration was quick and I must say a friendly clerk for once in immigration was nice. No problems at this airport.

MELBOURNE AIRPORT customer review :  15 February 2010 by Adnan Mir   (Australia)

Customer Rating :  2/5

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Cleanliness

Facilities

Check in lines are overflowing, departure lounge cramped and immigration is slow. With more international traffic coming into Melbourne the airport needs to expand and fast. Also annoyed there is no free WIFI like in KUL and SIN and lack of decent duty free shops within immigration.

MELBOURNE AIRPORT customer review :  11 December 2009 : by Soeren Krumrey   (Australia)

Customer Rating :  2/5

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Flew QF domestic several times from here and each time, the check in (ie Bag drop) experience had been an absolute nightmare. Utter chaos throughout, no one knows which queue is for what. Incredibly bitchy Qantas staff member telling people what to do and not to do without knowing herself what's happening. Screening staff at Security has been unfriendly on several occasions, partly due to the fact that Melbourne seems to be the only airport in Australia that insists on taking you shaving gel (!) away if you dare to carry this "security threat" in your hand luggage. Strange only that it seems to be pretty fine anywhere else but in MEL. In addition to all that, limited choice of food options and constant renovations that seem to lead to anything but a cleaner and better organized airport. Toilets as dodgy as Sydney but one single thing works much better. The taxi queue is much better organized and it takes far less time to end up in your cab. However, this advantage is almost entirely reversed by the fact that the airport is far out of the city resulting in insane cab charges to and from the airport.

MELBOURNE AIRPORT customer review :  28 September 2009 : by Michael Duffy   (Australia)

Customer Rating :  2/5

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My experience dates back to May this year so I apologise for the late report. If I were an overseas visitor arriving at Tullamarine for the first time I would feel exasperated. We arrived at 0810 from Auckland flying business class on Air NZ. Immigration control only had four desks open and with several overseas arrivals around the same time as our flight it became obvious that more desks need to be operating. Then once we were waved through immigration and retrieved our luggage another very long queue for customs resulted in a 50 minute wait for our cases to be inspected. There were too few immigration officers on duty on that morning and with just about every passenger's case being opened for inspection it resulted in an inordinate delay. I noted that some of these Custom officers had a very surly demeanour and one in particular was extremely rude to a Vietnamese woman who was queued two ahead of us. Customs needs to look closely at the people skills of its officers at this airport because for many it will be their first experience with an Australian official. The temperament of several on this particular morning was a cause for dismay. Customs department and the immigration department need to staff this airport properly instead of doing things to "world benchmarks" as the reply from the Customs Minister stated in his email response. Obviously the "world benchmark" must have been extracted from a Third World airport. Shame on you Melbourne Airport. And the parking costs at Melbourne Airport are now officially the highest in the world - another rip off by the operator.

MELBOURNE AIRPORT customer review :  22 September 2009 : by Claire Dean   (UK)

Customer Rating :  4/5

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The process of customs officers checking each passengers arrival card prior to going through customs results in excessive delays. I am from Melbourne, living in London and found this procedure completely disheartening; if Melbourne weren't my home town I would feel this initial arrival to Melbourne quite negatively. The necessity for customs procedures to be tight is appreciated however the arrival area and luggage carousels needs to be arranged properly.

MELBOURNE AIRPORT customer review :  31 August 2009 : by L Sutherland-Fraser   (Australia)

Customer Rating :  4/5

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Love the airport, the shops are super with good range of choice, I like that its small and not disjointed like larger airports, food is good quality with great choice. Dislike exorbitant cost of parking short term, ludicrous! On thinking Sydney is even worse - does the airport only make a buck from its parking?

MELBOURNE AIRPORT customer review : 13 July 2009 by Tim Costello

Customer Rating : 5/5

Coming back from the US in June I was quarantined for over an hour being tested for Swine Flu. Found my bag waiting for me next to the carousel, no line at customs, was waved through and exited 10 minutes later. Excellent! Skybus is expensive, you can catch a metlink bus but you need to transfer to a train at Broadmeddows. Take the skybus, saves you an hour of stress trying to figure out where to go and it takes you straight to Southern Cross Station. Its so easy to walk from terminal to terminal since they're all part of the same building, save Terminal 4 which is Tiger Airways and separate from the other three terminals.

MELBOURNE AIRPORT customer review : 27 May 2009 : by S Turton

Customer Rating : 2/5

Touting by limo drivers at T1 & T2 early morning and late evening has become a real pain for arriving passengers. It is illegal, the public announcements say so, and the signs say so, but the airport is doing nothing visible to stop these pushy touts hassling arriving passengers. The airport has extensive video surveillance, they can see what is happening, but they don't are. Makes Melbourne look like a 3rd world airport. With the lack of proper public transport options they will unfortunately persist!

MELBOURNE AIRPORT customer review : 27 February 2009 : by Marshall Davies

Customer Rating : 2/5

Recently had the slowest arrival experience of any international flights my wife and I have taken over the past 15 years - including our previous arrivals at Melbourne. We disembarked at about 2220 & collected our luggage at the carousel at 2245. Ominously, there were approximately 150 people queued for Customs when we first arrived at the carousel. By the time passengers from our flight had collected their luggage, there was a single queue that snaked twice around carousel 1 before feeding into the existing three lines of people who had been waiting when we arrived. As we waited patiently, passenger from another flight collected their bags & joined the queues. It took until 2345 to reach a Customs Officer & be waved though after a quick check of our luggage. I don't blame Customs staff who were obviously doing their best with patience & good humour, but seeing almost everyone being asked to open their cases, I could understand the delays. I doubt whether too many people waiting to clear Customs that night would have any positive thoughts about Melbourne Airport or maybe Melbourne & Australia, in general. Either there needs to be more Customs Officers on duty or some further risk analysis needs to be undertaken with a view to limiting searches of suitcases to a much smaller proportion than was carried out while we were there.

MELBOURNE AIRPORT customer review : 16 February 2009 : by Eric Simpson

Customer Rating : 3/5

Passing through Melbourne on two occasions as a transit passenger was a disappointing experience. The arrival pier was shabby and in need of re-carpeting and decoration. Only on reaching the arrivals duty free area did the appearance of the airport improve. Transit passengers were required to negotiate what appeared to be poorly finished service corridors and stairs in order to reach the departures security search area. The departure area itself was attractive with a good range of duty free outlets, unfortunately the toilets were in need of some deep cleaning.

MELBOURNE AIRPORT customer review : 7 February 2009 : by Simon Smith

Customer Rating : 2/5

I flew out of Melbourne on a Qantas domestic flight. The airport works OK, with little queue for check in or security, but it looks in need of modernisation. My main issue was that the food and drink options airside were awful. There are lots of different outlets, all with different branding, but they all sell the same products for the same prices. I bought a sandwich which was stale, a chocolate muffin which tasted more of banana, and a coffee which was cold - and this cost nearly $20. Eat before you get to the airport.

MELBOURNE AIRPORT customer review : 18 November 2008 : by J Potter

Customer Rating : 4/5

One of the most annoying things about this airport is the very high cost of short term parking which is $45 a day. This is more than a car park in central Melbourne. There is an undercover "Long-term" car park which is quite misleading. This car park charges the same as the short term car park which it shares the building with. I have no idea what the discount applying is, and at $90 overnight, it is expensive. I agree with the comments about baggage and customs delays, but there again this is an island nation and we think every one wants to come here. The domestic terminals are quite decent but then there is no immigration or much baggage there.

MELBOURNE AIRPORT customer review : 9 November 2008 : by E Carew

Customer Rating : 3/5

While I understand the arguments an airline operator might make about the need to make a return on its lease, Melbourne Airport's continued refusal to install free Internet terminals (emulating Singapore) is poor. Singapore may be essentially a government-run airport, but Melbourne is boring by comparison and it is about time that passengers were offered a small 'freebie' given the various airport charges that are included in the prices of most tickets. Of course it would be unfair to claim that Melbourne Airport is the only Australian airport to fall behind progressive transport hubs like Changi Airport. While Melbourne Airport's per-passenger processing fees are lower than most other Australian capital city airports, it ought to give something back to passengers who contribute a huge daily amount in parking fees and indirectly in airport income by supporting overpriced shops that block one's way once airside in the international terminal, as others have observed. There seems to be a lack of drinking water fountains in the Virgin Blue terminal, unforgivable in an often warm to hot climate like Melbourne's (in summer and early autumn at least) and another attempt to force us all to purchase bottled water should we forget to bring non- alcoholic drinks from home, office or hotel.

MELBOURNE AIRPORT customer review : 7 November 2008 : by K Goshalia

Customer Rating : 3/5

The security and immigration was not very long departing Melbourne taking a red eye flight to Singapore. The whole idea of passing the duty free to move to the gate area seems a little pushy to passengers. This leaves a feeling of aggressive selling on the minds of passengers. Once you pass the duty free shops to the gate area there is nothing much to do except just waiting at the gate area.No decent bar/dining area to relax before a flight. Unlike major airports worldwide there is no lounge access even on payment for travellers using non-premium cabins.

MELBOURNE AIRPORT customer review : 15 October 2008 : by A Jafarzadeh

Customer Rating : 3/5

Have flown in and out of Tullamarine International four times and every time I've been left wanting. Arriving in Melbourne is a tiring and tedious process with inefficient immigrations and customs procedures. Getting out of the building an hour after touchdown is the best you can hope for, especially if you're arriving with another international flight. When leaving Melbourne, make sure you grab something to eat before you go airside because there is quite literally nothing once you're through unless you fancy a dodgy sandwich bar with grumpy teenagers behind the counter or an overpriced "wine bar" that would be better suited to downtown Melbourne than an airport where most people just want something well-priced and appetising. I'm not much of a fan of fast food joints but even a Hungry Jacks would be welcome in the departure lounge. Pretty much nothing to do when waiting for your flight so bring a book or time it so you don't have long to wait after clearing security. For Australia's second biggest city Tullamarine is not doing Melbourne any favours and desperately needs more airside.

MELBOURNE AIRPORT customer review : 7 October 2008 : by G Hailey

Customer Rating : 1/5

Customs extremely slow. we were forced to go into foreigners line and wait for 45 minutes - finally got to the overcrowded baggage area. seems Melbourne patronage has outgrown the airports capabilities - waited 30 mins for the luggage to come and then ended up in a queue that stretched up and around and down the baggage carousels and then had to wait nearly 1 hour to get through baggage scanning. The demands on this airport have far exceeded what this airport and its facilities are capable of. The arrivals area is clearly lacking and has clearly been forgotten about in any development to increase its handling capabilities.

MELBOURNE AIRPORT customer review : 6 October 2008 : by R Dowling

Customer Rating :  3/5

Arrived back at international terminal few days ago and got through the whole 'plane to airport bus exercise in a record 40 minutes. The secret - very quiet, no other arrival in sight. Generally by far the slowest airport in the world from which to deplane. Baggage carousel a lousy old fashioned design, and it takes for ever for the baggage to even get to the carousel. (I think QANTAS does all international baggage). More than one flight per hour and the carousel is crowded with a lot of anxious pax who fight for space to grab their bags. Then the paranoid inspired quarantine queue which stretches almost back to the 'plane itself at times. Usually takes 60 minutes or more to get out of the place. Still, what can you expect from a glorified mini shopping mall aka as Tullamarine airport?

MELBOURNE AIRPORT customer review : 3 September 2008 : by R West

Customer Rating : 1/5

The international baggage hall is a dark and gloomy place to wait 65 minutes for luggage to come off the lane - but that's my most recent experience there. The waiting time was interspersed with announcements from airlines apologising to passengers for baggage delays - it seems to be a widespread problem. After picking up your bags, it's much better to avoid the long quarantine queue where luggage is checked - so don't bring anything in (eg, foodstuffs, or anything made of wood), that would cause you to be placed into that line. In my case, it took me more than two hours from disembarkation to catching a taxi - not good enough.

MELBOURNE AIRPORT customer review : 27 August 2008 : by D Mascarenhas

Customer Rating : 2/5

Departed from Melbourne using Qantas to Mumbai via Sydney. What's surprising is that one needs to pay for trolleys at both the departure and the arrival. Wonder whether passengers arriving first time or even Australians need to be reminded to carry 2 x $2 coins both for out and incoming flight fso they can pay for trolleys. I have a 4 month old infant and had to walk all the way up to the taxi rank on the other side to get a trolley some passenger had left behind before jumping into a cab.

MELBOURNE AIRPORT customer review : 30 July 2008 : by T Higson

Customer Rating : 4/5

Travelling with Qantas domestic with a group of footballers. For just about all of us, it was the first time we had been to Melbourne Airport and yet we went straight to the bagge claim without losing our way at all. It was a bit of a walk from gate 9 (I think) and our bags were there as we arrived at the claim area. On our return, security took only two minutes during the evening peek hour. There is a range of fast food outlets after security. We boarded at gate 2, one of the closest gates but it was still a fair walk compared to such airports like Brisbane. There are not many seats at the gate; but still more than some gates at Sydney. Clean airport, straight on the highway on arrival - 4s tars

MELBOURNE AIRPORT customer review : 29 July 2008 : by N Nasev

Customer Rating : 2/5

MEL used to be a great airport. On previous occasions transferring from domestic to international sections was a breeze. However, just now when a group of fellow travellers and myself followed the signs to the international section from domestic, we ended up in a dead-end. Also, you have to weave your way through a mass of duty-free retail areas to get through to the departure gate. I understand that this is quite standard in many airports around the world, but Melbourne has taken this approach way beyond a tolerable level. The worst experience of all was when I realised that I had left my mobile phone behind at the security screening area. When I tried asking the security official who was stationed at the lane I passed through whether he had seen my mobile, he deliberately ignored me and pretended that I was not even there! This is a clear indication of the attitude this airport has to its users.

MELBOURNE AIRPORT customer review : 19 June 2008 : by N Salmon

Customer Rating : 2/5

I'm a Melburnian and my recent trip through our airport was the second time I've felt let down. With four international flights arriving at once you'd expect a few queues but those in charge are clearly oblivious to the term 'customer service'. I'd just come through the much-maligned Heathrow and it was a far better experience. The line through quarantine was enormous and slow moving with no blue-shirted staff to hand to offer assistance. One passenger near me was trying in vain to connect to a domestic flight and another guy was hassled by the previously invisible staff for jumping the barrier to take his little boy to the toilet on the far side of the baggage hall. It took 95 minutes from gate to taxi rank and all international arrivals have just endured at least an eight hour flight. Can't be a great first impression for visitors.

MELBOURNE AIRPORT customer review : 7 May 2008 : by Edmund Carew

Customer Rating : 3/5

Ian Baker's comments about Australian quarantine are understandable. Yes, the queues for the 'red' lane (something to declare) move too slowly sometimes. However while I sometimes get mildly annoyed at having to declare processed foods like chocolate, the fact remains that Australia as the only island continent is free of many diseases found in Europe, Asia and the US so quarantine is strict as a result. Could the Australian Quarantine Inspection Service and Australian Customs improve their processing times? Yes, but sometimes there may simply not be enough 'lanes' at the airport in question. This is poor when one considers the massive amounts Australia's airports rake in from travellers and rentals, and the Australian departure tax which is not cheap by world standards.

Melbourne Airport review by Nick Fortuna

15 March 2008   Customer Rating :

Used MEL domestic and international on four occasions - Fri/Sat/Sun. The domestic airport works well enough, though on arrival, the relevant baggage reclaim could do with better signposting. Handy that the domestic international terminals are under the same roof, making transfers between the two much more comfortable - Sydney take note! Plenty of shops, pleasant ambience, and during the times I used the airport, not too busy. Announcements at the gate were hardly audible. One downside: the QANTAS international first class lounge upstairs could use with much better air conditioning. During the hot afternoon I was there, I saw three portable units rattling away in the supposedly rarified atmosphere of an international-standard lounge.

Melbourne Airport review by G Wilson

14 March 2008   Customer Rating :

Domestic terminal (Virgin Blue & Rex) Check-in for VB fine, but Rex not signposted. Asked staff & was helped, no problem. Signage for Rex was waist-high beside check in desk! Perhaps they dont want to be found. Long walk to Rex gate & not much to see or do - but it gets the job done.