Melbourne Airport

Not Verified | Recently travelled overseas to South Korea and Japan and returned home to Melbourne last Saturday. Not sure if the people running Melbourne Airport know what they're doing - we had to wait over an hour to get through Melbourne Airport security, passport control, absolutely ridiculous. Complete contrast to my experience at Seoul and Tokyo airports where even as Australian citizens, we had no problems getting through their airports quickly and efficiently. I suggest the executives at Melbourne Airport need to go overseas to experience and learn how to run an an airport efficiently.

✅ Trip Verified | Needs a train connecting to the CBD Domestic departure lounge is like a rural airport and doesn’t accommodate enough seats. Cafe area is nice enough. Will be using Sydney for future overseas travel when Brisbane can not supply a direct route since it is so easy to spend some time out of the airport between flights.

Not Verified | Terminal 3 security scanning staff are pushy, rude and officious. Having submitted to the scans and x-rays, I was attempting to gather my belt, bags and a packet of tissues that they insisted on me removing from my pocket (tissues!). The rude man at the end of the row kept parrotting "please take your possessions" at me, as if oblivious to the fact that this is what I was attempting to do. He said it four times, getting louder and more insistent each time. A normal human would offer the space and time to allow one to do this, but not this little chap. I felt humiliated and belittled by the whole process.

✅ Trip Verified | Access to Melbourne Airport remains difficult because of no rail connection and only limited drop-off time allowed. The number of check-in desks in international departures (T2) is huge but signage is good. Security and passport control were an endurance test: queues remain long in security and security staff were humourless. Melbourne has regrettably adopted the same security system as other airports like Charles de Gaulle and Brussels, in which passengers are simultaneously allotted stalls for pushing belongings onto the belt. This means competition to get one´s belongings on the belt and the likelihood of being widely separated from your belongings by the time you get through personal screening. Very stressful. Shopping on the airside is somewhat limited: a huge duty-free area, selling the same luxury goods as every other airport, but very few shops selling distinctively local items (other than tourist souvenirs made in Asia). Only two eating options in evidence: a burger outlet and a Italian-style cafe. Seating in the gate area was very limited and priority boarding not clearly indicated.

✅ Trip Verified | T3 at Melbourne Airport has been redesigned since our last experience in 2022. The changes are not necessarily improvements. We had to print our own boarding pass and baggage tag and load onto the conveyor belt. The system malfunctioned and we had to call for help. There is no direct access to departure gates (as previously); passengers now have to walk a long way to T4 to get through security, then the same distance back to reach the beginning of the concourse. All right for those without mobility problems. The airport is as ever dirty.

✅ Trip Verified | Melbourne is easily the worst airport in Australia for arrival. Corridors are dirty and there is a long walk from the arrival gate to immigration. We had to wait ages for our luggage to arrive. Incredibly, there is still no train service from the airport (unlike Brisbane and Sydney). Pick-up arrangements for private cars are confusing and poorly signposted.

Not Verified | Chalk and cheese when compared to Dubai at my last business trip. Despite the “modernization” work, T2 is still old and tired, especially the arrival side. Reminds me of the old LAX. The custom declaration self service stations appear to be placed at complete random position along the passageway to immigration. Luggage came out of carrousel at random order and took ages. Management clearly missed the point about putting out priority luggage first is important passenger flow control, so you don’t get entire plane load of people all waiting for bags and clearing customs at the same time. T1 is also old but at least it is reasonably efficient.

✅ Trip Verified | Terminal 4 is horrendous. It is new, yet looks and feels very outdated. The walk to the gate is massive and when you finally arrive there are no seats. Elderly and people with mobility issues have to stand. They have walking escalators, yet half weren’t working.

Not Verified | Flying from terminal 3 you have to walk to terminal 4 for screening then back to terminal 3 to the gate as they removed screening at T3. So the passengers are inconvenienced but the airport cares little about passengers which is evident by the lack of facilities. The airport is past its use by date and needs to expand and improve in every way.

✅ Trip Verified | We waited for 1.5 hours for our luggage, and our next flight is only 2 hours away from the first flight. It’s so unacceptable and we don’t know why it must take Melbourne airport such a long time for us to collect luggage. Another thing is, we didn’t expect to collect our luggage during the transit. We booked our ticket thru flight centre, from Queenstown back to Adelaide, but need to transit from Melbourne. We have traveled a lot and Melbourne is the only airport which we need to collect our luggage during a transit! And we waited so long and almost missed our next flight! So bad. We learnt a lesson - don’t come anyway near Melbourne airport!!