Auckland Airport

Not Verified | Very poor service in passport control and security took 2hours 30 min to get airside boarded plane after the fine call for flight.. After being on aircraft approx 20 min airline staff said that ten passengers who had checked in for flight where still not on flight so their luggage needed to taken off the flight . this caused our flight to Doha to miss most of its connecting flights from Doha. Surely Auckland airport can sort this delay problem out? seems to me they have more flights than they can handle

Not Verified | Horrendous arrangement for departure passport control and security with half the gates closed at peak time and those that are open being tortuously slow. The prospect of getting through this in <30mins even with express lane is imaginary.

Not Verified | What a debacle. Had to wait 40 minutes on flight till the doors were opened by airport staff. Then got bus into terminal where the door was locked. Waited another 10 minutes for someone to open it (much to bus drivers embarrassment). Shocking service.

Not Verified | Are they deliberately trying to make our lives worse? Not only is getting on a 6am flight bad enough but then some bright spark decided there was no need to open security till 90 minutes before the first flight took off. So, being required for an international flight to get there 2 if not 3 hours before, hundreds of people are then left waiting outside security with minimal seating, and one food place open. When they did open, they were rushed by the mob to get through security to their gates. On top of this the staff are officious and unhelpful. My advice- try and avoid Auckland airport as much as possible!

Not Verified | Our flight was at 6:10am to Melbourne. We checked in and checked our bags at 4:45am. We proceeded to security. As soon as we got off the escalator it was a blob of people with no queuing ribbons. We waited for a while but realized everyone was cutting and time was running out. A sign said 40 min wait from where to corded line started. By then it was 5:10 and our flight boarded at 5:25. Someone in line suggested we go to the express line to ask if we could pass because our flight was about to board. We did but they said no. Some nice people in the line let us into the actual queue so at least we were not in the lawless blob and we were actually making progress. The passport control is automated and should be fast but somehow nothing is fast or efficient. After 45 min we finally arrived at the actual security ck. They advised us to put laptops out. There are no signs about this only a guy who tells you. My bad I didn’t specifically ask about ipads. It was now 6:00am. Both our bags sorted to hand search where a single agent was nonchalantly opening bags finding canned drinks (coke & monster etc. not reusable) & asking their owners if they wanted to drink them. No sense of urgency whatsoever. Instead of just throwing it out and moving to the next bag. There were 5 bags ahead of ours. I sent my husband to the gate (18 at least 3/4 of a mile away) I waited. My bad ipad found. Second bag. Nothing. “Oh we just didn’t get a picture”. Rerun. It’s now 6:15am. Several agents have assured me that this is fine the airlines are uses to this and will hold the plane. Meanwhile at the gate they are telling my husband that the gate is closing. Nothing in second bag. Finally I am literally running with bad knees and 2 bags to the farthest gate when I passed a woman with a cart. “Please drive me to gate 18 my flight is leaving” “ I’m afraid I can’t do that”. Continue running. The gate is in sight. Finally a nice lady in another cart with an older couple (not much older than me but less fit) stopped and picked me up. I made it in the plane 6:30am. I’ve traveled all around the world. This is the worst airport ever. Completely inefficient. Signage that says stuff but not what you need to know. “No liquids ovee 100ml” but no indication if they need to be in a baggie. Out of your bag? Mystery. No signage re ipads or laptops. Just a guy telling you if he thinks to tell you as you load your bin for xray. Unfortunately we need to go back because our second half of our vacation is in the South Island. We will have to fly out of Auckland again back to the states later in the month. I dread going back to NZ. I’d stay in Australia if we hadn’t prepaid hotels in NZ. But I won’t go back again. There are so many places to spend your tourist money without the stress of an inefficient airport. Third world countries do much better. The only thing that came close was a Paris airport general slowdown in the 1990s and they were deliberately trying and inconvenience visitors.

Not Verified | I took a domestic flight from Wellington to Auckland which took less than 1 hour. The queue to clear immigration in Auckland took longer than the domestic flight from Wellington (on 28 Sep 2023). The immigration area was busy but not any busier than many airports that I have been to (in Asia, US + Europe) - the only difference with Auckland was the slow speed and inefficient processes. Some examples: 1) while the general "e-gate" queue had hundreds of people in the line, the queues for "all other passports" occasionally had no one and so you have 2 officers sitting there with nothing to do. It's mind boggling why didn't the staff move a few from the "e-gate queue" over to the ultra-empty queue (especially those who are at risk of missing their flight due to the long queue at immigration). Similarly with the "express lane" - there were loads of times during my 1 hour queue at the e-gate line where there was absolutely no one using the "express lane" - again why did the staff not use their initiative and move a few people in the "e-gate" queue over? I nearly missed my connecting flight due to this extremely slow immigration clearance. 2) when I was departing Wellington airport, the screening staff said tablets could be left in the bag unless we had more than 1. In Auckland we were told to take everything out for screening. These little things takes extra time. Why the difference in processes? The staff were probably only doing what they were told to do - and so the above failings are simply management failures in my view. With such a horrible experience, don't think I will ever transit via Auckland airport again. The Christchurch airport as a transit point (for flights to/from Singapore) is just so much better.

Not Verified | I’ve just returned to New Zealand from an international trip. It’s a depressing sight when arriving at Auckland International Airport. Duty free looks like it’s just a few temporary stalls that have been set up. The immigration hall is still somewhat presentable but once you have passed through immigration it’s a dump. The baggage collection is a mess. It’s dirty with bags everywhere. Toilets are dirty. Once you’ve collected your bags (after a significant delay), you’ll walk towards the bio security and customs area. All flights arriving in the evening through to the early morning all need to stand in crazy queues so that every single passenger can put their bag through an X-ray machine even if you have nothing to declare. There is no express lane or green lane outside of standard business hours. The customs hall is a disorganised maze of retractable belt barrier stanchions. If you arrive during a busy period, the hall is packed and you’ll stand around for ages. The building is generally dirty and dated. Most African airports I have been to make Auckland airport feel extremely dirty and third world.

Not Verified | The airport remains a sorry story of disorganisation, crowds of people waiting for too few service desks or to drop bags. Customs is completely understaffed. That’s just departure! On return it’s even worse. I know of people who fly in to other centres just to avoid Auckland. The major pinch point is bio security - there is absolutely no excuse for the ongoing “temporary tent” inadequate staff leading to queues back into bag collection. It can take an hour or more to get out of the airport. Horrible experience.

Not Verified | The time to be processed for biosecurity was absolutely appalling, obviously totally understaffed for the number of airplanes landed. Of all the international travel I have done Auckland International has consistently been the worst. Yesterday it plumbed new depths of pathetic! People waiting around me were laughing at the recorded messages saying welcome to NZ, it felt like the airport was being sarcastic at best. Made me ashamed of NZ

Not Verified | To call this an airport is a disgrace for the name itself as this Airport seems to have excuse after excuse for why things are not running properly. Thought it was bad when travelling in May this year to Fiji, they have decided to scan your boarding pass before passport check and security and claim this is done everywhere in the world, actually no it is not, never been to any airport that has this as at Auckland Airport it creates endless queues, so once you have queued 45 minutes for the boarding pass check then you que again for passport control but wait it gets better because there are not enough security check points open the queue builds up for passport check also due to the staff closing down the e-gates as they see fit so you really need to plan to spend 1 to 2 hours in those lines and people around you are getting called for flights as they are stuck in the lines. But once you have made it through all of this you are greeted by white hoardings as the airport decided to reduce duty free offerings to one provider only plus many of the other stores are boarded up also as no one is wanting to rent the overpriced spaces. Then finally you make it to the food court area where everything is three times the price than outside of the airport, understand there is a premium to pay but some prices are literally 3 to 4 times the price of what is in the city. The tables are dirty littered with rubbish as no one cleans and much of the furniture is broken. The gate lounges are tiny and no longer fit for purpose in Pier A (Gates 1 to 10) as many people end up sitting on the floor. Arriving back is even worse arrived on a late flight from Sydney waited over half an hour at the remote stand waiting for stairs and busses, other airports have these waiting for the plane to arrive and not the other way around. But it got even better after buying some duty free and clearing customs we started waiting for our bags and it seemed other flights that arrived after us were given priority which meant that even though we landed at 00:27 the first bag arrived on the belt at 1:45am, seriously we were the last to get our luggage even though many others had already gotten theirs and left the airport. To make matters worse because they are building a new car park one has to walk for ages to their car as they decide to not run the courtesy bus 24 hours but only until 11pm even though flights do arrive early in the morning. Auckland is really one of the worst airports in the world and even airports in developing nations operate much more efficiently than this disaster calling itself an international airport.