Sydney Airport

I transited via Sydney on flight from Dubai to Christchurch. After doing the same same 8 hours earlier in Bangkok what a difference. Transit area was close to where we got off plane. Security check efficient and friendly. Once checked through lots of facilities available, currency exchange, shopping food, and lounging seats. Also wifi as well as free computers if you didn't have electronic device of own. There was a charging station also which had USB option if you didn't have correct electrical plug. This was heaven compared to Bangkok.

We are regular users of T1 and can sympathize with a lot of the previous comments here. But on this last trip all was well. An 8am departure saw us check in and thru emigration and security without any delays. The border patrol guy even had time for a chat. Have never seen the airport so deserted. Toilets airside were clean and most of the food places were open. Arrival back in the early evening was the same story. Of course my passport wouldn't scan (it seldom does) but went straight thru the manual check without delay. My partner (American passport) went thru the automated system without problems. Luggage was soon available and customs/quarantine was also quick. Landing to airport hotel room in 40 mins. Sometimes you can be lucky.

Although the facilities are new the airport is clean. The airport has one of the worst immigration and custom processing facilities in the world. It isn't unusual to find that only one luggage security scanner is operating. The queue is always hopelessly long, and the immigration personnel can be very rude. I suppose with the monopoly of being the only airport in Sydney, they can afford to do so. The parking charges are incredibly expensive. Trying to squeeze too much infrastructure within the limited space, has turned their car park into something resembling a maze. The lane lines are confusing. The signage is poor. The congestion entering and exiting the airport is incomprehensible for a modern city. Trying to drive along Qantas Drive during peak hours is like driving through peak hours in the city, one could hardly move. Perhaps it is time that Sydney has a second airport.

My wife and I use the Sydney International Terminal for convenience at least once a year on average and we feel that nothing has changed in a long time. The International Airport Terminal itself has the appearance of a tired, old world and filthy patchwork quilt. Operationally it is expensive, pokey, dirty and noisy and has officials with attitude. The treatment of passengers in arrivals is dysfunctional and nothing short of embarrassing. On our last arrival my wife's electronic passport was declined three times and she was obliged to get back into the long non resident immigration arrival line along with other frustrated passengers. Asian arrivals waiting for the rest of their party behind the cramped immigration area were shouted at to get down the narrow filthy steps into the baggage area "or else". No directions, no guidance, no one asking for our Ebola Forms and most of the people on our flight making a quick straight line from immigration into the Arrivals Hall uninterrupted without baggage or any other checks. Filthy amenities, washrooms where people still need to touch and push doors to access toilet areas. This International Terminal operation wouldn't rate as a regional/country airport in most other countries and remains a national embarrassment.

Truly dreadful - national embarrassment. Since taking over Macquarie Bank has only invested in the things that give them a return. So almost constant extensions to the world's most expensive car parks and ever more modern looking shopping areas. Alas the rest of T1 is left to rot. Tired old building that is poorly maintained and rarely cleaned. An inbound immigration sections that could barley cope with 707s let alone A380s. Macquarie will never invest in what could be called 'the public infrastructure' even modestly. So no grade separated pedestrian and road bridges like other airports - cheaper to just paint on a pedestrian crossing and watch the chaos. Despite pocketing a taxi surcharge the taxi rank is cattle race with pathetic vehicle circulation. Macquarie are too stingy to even put up a covered walkway from the terminal to their monopoly priced car park. An utter disgrace.

I and my colleagues went to New Zealand together and transited at Sydney Airport during Thai New Year Holiday. There were so many tour groups in the queue. At first we were waiting in a different line but after a while the flux of the tour group crowd were pushing us to the back. That wasn't the worst thing airport staff seem not bother managing the tour groups the small groups or individual travelers. There were bunches of individual travelers trying to cut the line with the reason that their flight was boarding. We were almost late for boarding our flight. We finally had to ask the Officer to help us with the queue when we had only 10 minutes left before boarding time but the Officers didn't bother to do anything. I suggest the airport looks at managing the queuing system to at least separate the lines by the group size of travelers and the next flight time.

Passengers off just one A380 queued up nearly back to the embarkation point trying to navigate through to the arrivals hall - poor signage and few instructions. No staff were coming through the queue and directing tired and frustrated passengers down to the numerous kiosks positioned by the smartgates - so no-one knew they could form different lines. Half of the kiosks seemed to reject passports which shouldn't have been rejected so it took a number of attempts again leaving painful queues. If you could successfully get the kiosk to work the smartgate then rejected some of the tickets. After that to be faced with seemingly surly and rude customs officers and being pushed into ever decreasing space which took forever to exit through the 'nothing to declare' channel made for a truly wonderful experience! Compared with so many other airports around the world dreadful.

I'm not sure what Macquarie Bank is trying to achieve at Sydney Airport but it is truly dreadful! At the moment it presents like a large Dan Murphys scattered with MacDonalds and other equally poor quality food offerings. It is one of the worst airports I have ever had the misfortune to visit. Soulless generic and boring.

A truly dreadful airport. Its not so much that it is old but it is very poorly maintained dirty and scruffy exceptionally badly laid out loud and very poorly signed. Toilet areas are disgusting and this is not a place where I would eat. All space that might be used for passengers has been turned into retail areas - its not so much an airport as a run-down shopping mall with very cramped departure gates attached. It is slightly better for arrival than departure but there is not much in it. This airport needs new ownership new management and a lot of investment.

Long queues a lot of cutting in by the usual suspects from China and India. Long lines at security and then I met the most abrasive discourteous security person ever. At the end of the process I stopped to chat him about his attitude complained to his supervisor and lodged a complaint with the airport via their website. This was automatically turned over to the security company who replied with the usual tripe.