Perth Airport

We arrived at 6pm - went straight through the self serve passport control. Then we went straight through the quarantine and customs. Cannot see what all the fuss is about. We were in the car at 6.30pm.

We arrived at 6pm - went straight through the self serve passport control. Then we went straight through the quarantine and customs. Cannot see what all the fuss is about. We were in the car at 6.30pm.

Arrived from Singapore at 5.30pm and immigration was absolutely full of arriving passengers with massive queues for passport check. Luckily I have an e-passport so I answered the 2 questions got the card and proceeded to the machine which takes your photo. I have done this before and it rejected me this time. I asked a man in a yellow coat what to do and he pointed to the massive queue and said abruptly "join the queue". I joined the Australian and New Zealand queue but was furious that with so many planes landing at the same time that Customs don't have the common sense to put more than 2 staff on the counters. When I finally got to the top of the queue (25 minutes later) the officer just laughed it off when I asked why the photo scanner rejected me when I had done it countless times before. Then it got worse. Now this is Perth a small city but the luggage carousel area was almost packed from wall to wall. A loudspeaker message kept saying "Due to the high number of planes arriving at the same time there may be delays". It took from the moment I got off my flight to get out to the taxi rank just on 60 minutes. Perth Airport get your act more professional. More Officers on duty to clear the long queues and for goodness sake fix those scanner machines on the e-passport. Having just been in Singapore they get you through immigration quickly luggage quickly and make it a first world experience.

Having had the misfortune to travel through Terminal 1 six times in the past year I think it is fair to say that this ranks amongst the poorest airports in the world especially for one in a so called developed country. Aside from the basic design flaws inherent in the original plans for the international terminal opened in 1986 which never helped the situation the current refurbishment's and extensions which seem to be as far from completion as they were when they were started 2 years ago are not addressing the basic issues that the terminal faces and seem to be making walking distances even worse. The basic problem is of course that when first built it never adopted the almost universal idea for airports of arrivals on the ground floor and departures on the first floor. Everything is on the ground floor then you go upstairs to immigration and security before going upstairs again to get to the woefully inadequate departure gates before having to walk down two floors via stairs to get to the airbridge to the plane. All the rebuilding ever since has not done much to correct the fundamental issues inherent in the design with Terminal 1. Facilities for the departing passenger are poor they are shockingly overpriced as far as the stores are concerned (although most are currently closed due to the refurbishment) they are cramped and illogically laid out. There remain serious issues with the lack of space in the departure gates but departing the airport is way easier than arriving! Arriving passengers now have to traipse to the back of the duty free store to get to immigration whist being bombarded by staff touting for business. After you get through immigration you usually get accosted without any warning by biosecurity officers who check your inbound passenger card for a preliminary check. Then you go downstairs to the baggage claim area where you have to miraculously work out which carousel your luggage will arrive on. Is it that hard to put an information screen on the immigration level to tell you this? If you have the unfortunate situation of your luggage arriving on carousel 3 then prepare your packed lunch - its a long walk! Then prepare to wait - a long time! There are only 5 international gates - why does it take so long for luggage to make it to the carousels? After arriving at Gate 5 last time I was in the baggage claim area in 8 minutes - then waited for just over 20 minutes for my bags. Once the luggage finally arrives you walk all the way back to the other end of the baggage claim area to go through biosecurity. Lots of staff but very few seem to be doing anything. You walk out of biosecurity into the arrivals hall - which is now smaller and narrower than before even though it is supposed to have been extended! Most of the extension seems to have been for more hire car desks. If you are unfamiliar with the airport good luck following all the virtually non-existent clear signage! If you are after a taxi well its now a nice long walk but at least it is undercover if you happen to be heading to the pick up lane or the car park you will get wet if it is raining or get sunburnt if it is hot and sunny. This is by far the worst designed airport you could ever find in a supposedly developed country.

Perth airport has always been badly organised. With the renovations going on at present it has declined to an absolute disgrace. I flew out with my husband on 26 August. We checked in and we were told to make sure to go through immigration by 9am. We walked upstairs to buy some breakfast only The Dome was open. We decided to go through immigration early and use the facilities on the other side. As we got to the entry doors a worker came along and proceeded to shut the doors in our face. When we asked to go through before he shut them he just very rudely told us to come back at 9.30am. No explanation at all. we went back to The Dome who advised us the power was about to go out and they couldn't serve us. There were no signs to let anyone know what was happening or apologising for the inconvenience no announcements over the tannoy apart from the usual warnings about leaving your baggage unattended. We went back downstairs to try to find out what was going on. We saw one poor guy who was halfway through an atm transaction when the power went out. However on our return to Perth the new arrangement at arrivals is a huge improvement.

I have never given any travel review one star until now. After flying through Asia and having ok to excellent experiences this was a disgrace. Terrible service at the e-passport / immigration. Massive lines with good old 1960s Aussie humour from the blokey staff disguising the pathetic service. Makes me want to turn around and leave again.

My international flight arrived less than half full so going through baggage and customs and immigration was a breeze. Leaving via the domestic terminal was confusing. departure lounges were terrible. Evidence of work in progress needs to be improved on. Domestic flight departures screens were not up to date? Had to ask why the flight was not listed.

Arrived 28th March from Singapore got soaked in rain including baggage whilst being picked up at the arrivals end of the airport. No cover provided. Have been to many airports including some of the poorer countries and have not had this experience. Customer care seems to be not one of the priorities of Perth Airport.

Arrived at 2am from Singapore and it was pouring with rain outside. There is no cover at all from the arrivals area to the passenger pick up area and with a pregnant wife in tow I was not going to make the two of us dash in the rain to our pick up. So our pick up vehicle pulled up outside Arrivals and I began to quickly load up as to not inconvenience any one as it was not a pick up zone to have this guard/agent/contractor come over to tell me that it's not a pick up area. I asked him who does he expect to run to the pick up area in this rain and he said "Its not that far its right there". They are spending money doing up the inside but I think they need to look at some basic infrastructure items outside instead. Absolutely disgusted at this incident!

Arriving back into Perth yesterday afternoon what a lovely surprise we had we walked through Duty Free E passport check luggage came through quickly ushered out of airport and home within 20 minutes how refreshing it will all look when renovations are completed well done.