Melbourne Airport

Not Verified | Continually find new ways to underperform and excellent at mediocrity. Bags are always late. Departure queues are the worst on planet earth. Toilets putrid. Nowhere near enough terminal seating. Late flights every single time.

Not Verified | Soulless, drab, soviet, anodyne and completely impersonal. Abysmally awful signs and any real interaction with passenger traffic. For a country which has beautiful colour palettes and home to amazing indigenous art, its a huge indictment on tourism Victoria/Australia and Melbourne Airport. Big spaces of open areas in the domestic wing (gates 1-10) with no seating, or anywhere vaguely sensible to sit down. Its as though designers just thought 'ummmmm, we'll get back to this later, we'll leave it blank'. Its a bit embarrassing when you see people having to sit down, on the floor, to say recharge their phone/tablet. To think you could have recharge stations to comfortably sit by. Asking too much? Thought so. Bleek spartan walls abound. Indigenous art? Murals? No? Ok. Vaguely sensible signage telling people, where things are? Asking too much. Monitors, the size of an iphone screen telling people where connecting flights are? Ah. Ok. Toilets? Abysmally awful. When you see people go in, swing around, and walk out with a 'I'll wait till I get on the plane' look on their face, you know things are kinda bad. Poorly maintained. Locks that dont work, Door frames that are splintered. Tiles that seem haphazardly repaired? Family toilets for parents & children? Sorry, no. You stand and ponder and you think, 'gee Singapore really thought about their airport and design' and you wonder if Melbourne might invite them down for constructive ideas. Its just a shame, that, in visiting Melbourne, there is only one airport you can use.

Not Verified | EY460 arrived late here at around 6pm but we must have gotten lucky because after the long walk to immigration it was obvious no other flight had landed within a 20min period as immigration was deserted so through here in 2 minutes. Coming into the baggage hall it wa deserted! A shock as normally as this area is packed with people waiting for bags. Quickly through customs & out of the airport within 20mins - a record only because we got lucky on arrival time of our flight.

Not Verified | What a terrible experience Melbourne airport has become. I am from Melbourne but have lived overseas for 9 years. This was first return to the international terminal in that time. Arrived on a Qantas flight which was bad enough. But the airport was windy so “for OHS reasons” there were delays in offloading luggage. A one hour delay is pretty bad because of wind. Why doesn’t MEL have wind breaks, why don’t they have the ability to secure the cargo shells to the trailers? But that is only part of the problem. Once inside, my god it’s like a prison. Why do the border force staff have to yell aggressively like riot police. Then to have three flights all sent to the same carousel, all being delayed in the delivery of bags. More shouting from ground staff in some unintelligible local dialect. Eventually the bags arrive (one hour later), then an unbelievable snaking crawl out of the baggage area to hand in the landing card and immigration slip. The border force staff are beyond rude. Actually they are a disgrace. Bad tempered, rude, dismissive, I watched them be so disrespectful to foreign visitors unsure of what to do with which card. Totally unnecessary and what a terrible welcome to Melbourne. Quite seriously King Abdul Azid airport in Saudi Arabia is light years ahead of MEL. (And much busier). But that wasn’t the end of it, because the airport is so small the rental care pickups are broken up and dispersed with dreadful or non existent signage. The airport seems to have no clear ability to manage traffic so dragging suitcases across the forecourt to a badly understaffed rental car outlet (Hertz), then another wait in a crowded smelly little room while they found my precooked car. Landing to getting in car, 2 hours 15 minutes, but the absolute best is saved for last - departures. 48 hours later on a Sunday morning flying out, the security checking may be understandable because of the number of lunatics in the world. But poorly trained, foul mouthed badly dressed private security staff yelling at people repeatedly to show their boarding pass then randomly selecting small groups for invasive checking of carry on bags with no explanation. I have travelled to some of the worst places in the world and have experienced such a hostile treatment of ordinary people. It begs the question, why bother going to Australia? It is expensive, overrated and absolutely no longer a visitor friendly destination. No place better exemplified this than Melbourne airport.

✅ Trip Verified | It took me an hour to get from the entrance to the other side of security. First the machines wouldn't recognise my ticket so I had to get Qantas assistance to get that. Then security would not let me take a walking stick on the flight since it was not for my use, despite me trying to explain due to being a smaller plane my carryon along with the walking stick would go premium baggage and not even make it into the cabin. Qantas had to add the walking stick as checked baggage. Back through security (which had a shift change during this) and my carryon was held aside. Apparently I had scissors which I had forgotten to put in my other bag but same scissors had been cleared by Devonport because A) they were less than 6cm as stated on the Home Affairs page and B) my carryon would not actually be going in the cabin. Five scans later I was attacked for having 3 pairs of scissors, 2 under 2cm and the nail scissors which were permitted but had the longest blades at 3cm? No one would listen that the bag would not actually be allowed in the cabin anyway and I was told I had to check the bag to keep the scissors. Qantas could not believe the trouble I was getting after clearing security the first time (different crew) and checked the bag despite a one bag limit. Five arrogant, ignorant, self important staff made my life hell for 45 minutes over something I was actually permitted to carry per the home affairs web page

Not Verified | A typical security processing experience, whereby some staff extremely professional and courteous, while other staff could not be any more unprofessional, completely unfriendly, and totally lacking in any type of reasonable communication with individual travellers. As usual my wife and I attempted to ask questions about what to remove or not remove, only to be met with silence, grunts or aggressive answers or postures, which for two retired police officers like ourselves was not a surprise, unfortunately. I was selected to be pulled aside after going through the metal scanner, but not for a personal hand screening, or pat down, but over to one side to check my carry on bag. I was given absolutely no reason or explanation for this bag search, weighing or size check, no communication about the process from the security officer, no communication about the final result, in a manner that if I conducted myself during my police career like this I would cop an absolute verbal beating or worse from my supervisor or higher rank. What is it about these security check points that everyone agrees are necessary, but are run and conducted in a manner that makes the average traveller feel anxious, nervous, concerned, frustrated, and generally after going through, left with a very sour taste in your mouth. I lost a very personal and important cross and chain whilst going through all this on our way to gate 9 for a Virgin flight to Newcastle, which was almost impossible to replace. I place a great deal of blame at the way these security check points are designed and managed, and obviously take no blame or criticism in any way, although there are some staff who try to help, but appear hamstrung by how they are forced to work. I am a medically retired ex NSW police officer with two severe chronic disabilities, and whenever I mention that I may require some small assistance when going through these check points, I usually receive no empathy of any kind, or usually very little assistance. I guess it would be better just to stay home and not travel, because I cannot see how these check points, which again, are necessary, will ever improve, and will always start and finish any trip in a very poor manner.

✅ Trip Verified | I had the worst airport security experience at Melbourne Tullamarine airport on 6th August when I was departing Melbourne for a holiday in Singapore. I’ve been in Melbourne for close to 10 years and am honestly shocked each time I leave or enter Melbourne in the airport, I encounter rude hostile service security staff. Melbourne airport staff should really take a page of quality service training from the airport staff in Singapore. I feel that Australians are friendly cultured polite people and Melbourne airport service delivery is portraying Melbourne in a negative light to all travellers, international or not. 6th August was my worst airport experience. On getting through the main departure gate, I had to pass through this security which is to take out my laptops, phones, coats, hand carry luggage and put it on the tray so it can pass through the screening camera. Then I was urged to stand and follow the picture of a man and the way the picture stood. This technology I’ve not seen the last time I travelled. Being shorter, I was trying my best to follow with arms by the side. This took a minute longer. The airport security female staff was peeved and rude and she shook her head. “Can’t you follow the picture!?” In a sarcastic tone. I’ve never been treated like this. I am aware airports can get busy, and staff need to do their jobs quickly and perhaps airport security staff hold that “much of authority” but there was absolutely no need to be rude. Not all travellers are familiar with airport procedures and so therefore await your kind instructions and patient explanation. A job is a job, if you have no passion for working in the airport and seeing tons of disarray tourist all day long, the least you can do is be polite and be understanding and patient with airport travellers. Dear airport security staff representing a “developed country”, please step up your game. You are not the only busy airport in the whole world. For your sake, please take valuable lessons from Singapore or Hong Kong airport in terms of cleanliness and service delivery of systems.

Not Verified | This particular time of day, Saturday early evening seems less busy when departing than weekdays hence both security was very quick & efficient with courteous security staff for a change. WiFi connection that’s offered free was good & reliable so was good & the couple of toilets I used were relatively clean & maintained so maybe because it wasn’t a busy period. If you happen to be in the airport when it’s less busy it’s quite pleasant but it does feel this airport is in bad need of an expansion as population growth in Melbourne has rapidly increased over the years.

✅ Trip Verified | Begins with the freeway getting there when you have to consider peak hour gridlock to get to the airport on time, this is very poorly designed access. Getting into the pick up, drop off or parking areas is very poorly signed and confusing. How hard would it be to put coloured lines to follow? Orange for Jetstar drop off, follow the orange line. Red for Virgin, etc. 1 minute pick up lanes need better signage - paint one green and one blue so people can call and say I am in the blue lane on the left or right. Entrance into security screening is poor, I left my wallet in the tray due to the pressure of getting through, no one called me back for it, lucky it was still there a few minutes later when I wanted to buy something in the food area and went back for it. I think there should be more toilets, having people line up behind you isn't very comfortable. Every part of the process could be much more user friendly. Why is it so complicated? Unfortunately there aren't many options to go elsewhere.

Not Verified | While the airport ultimately gets the job done, it's not good enough for a first world country and an embarrassing first impression to overseas travellers. On departing through security, the Australian Border Force make the experience hostile and unsettling and what one might expect from a third world country, not from the world's (allegedly) most livable city. The airport is ugly, cramped, filthy and laughably out of date. You have to wonder if the airport management give a damn at all about the travelling experience. They need to look at Changi or Hong Kong and see how it should be done.