Melbourne Airport

I just travelled to Sydney. Last flight before that was last year. The toilets are an absolute disgrace! Nothing changed. Stains on the floor old fixings. The airport lounges and infrastructure is so old and lacks that savvy modern look and feel. It doesn't rate even near to other international airports. Terminal building both external and internal is bland and simple.

I travelled through this Airport using all 4 terminals. T4 is an utter disgrace. Used by Tiger airlines the terminal is small and delays are constant that people wait by standing in between the rows of seats. The domestic terminals are always packed with people and the international arrivals is a source of national shame. The luggage takes forever and the lines through to customs often start near customs. The baggage staff are the worst in the country they are slower than laid back airports like Brisbane or Darwin. Once I had to pick up a senior from the airport. The plane was parked at the furthest gate. My passenger was the last to leave as she had mobility difficulties. We both walked slowly to the baggage carousel and once we got there it was another 35 minutes for the first piece of luggage to come out. Her bag came ten minutes later. If Melbourne Airport is the first destination for incoming international travelers then I fear it paints a black picture for the rest of the country. Sydney airport looks more outdated than Melbourne but runs much better.

I found the customer service to be appalling with long queues and little customer assistance. Staff were rude and not helpful and not interested in assisting customers. This facility is about hiring poor staff and making money. It's an embarrassment to Melbourne. It took hours to get out of customs and after being overseas the performance at Melbourne was a disgrace! Get your act together and represent your city properly! Parking and signage was also a disgrace!

Highest Taxes very expensive parking and other services like Internet and Trolley very rude staff filthy toilets obsolete infrastructure. Unfortunately they have a monopoly.

International check in for Qantas is absolute chaos. All departing flights use a single queue that snakes into the terminal area well outside the marked lanes. Nobody can tell where the end of the line is and the stress levels are extreme as people struggle to find the queue end or push in. If 3 or 4 large plans are departing there can be over 500 people in the queue. We were on a short haul flight to NZ on a small 737 and despite arriving 2 hours before departure we never made to the front of the check-in line. Luckily we heard a staff member calling for any Wellington passengers and along with about 25 others jumped to the head of the line. Someone from Qantas needs to understand that queues should be by flight by departure time. Using a single queue is absolutely crazy and I will never fly Qantas International out of Melbourne again. I note that all other departing airlines use queues by flight number with clear queuing and no stress.

It's the worst airport I've been to. To start check in is much slower than anywhere in Europe as the staff chit chat to all passengers secondly not enough security check points were available (2 on Sunday evening one of which was turned into fast track for cabin crew and airport personnel). To add international rules for sharp items are understood differently in Australia - you can't even take nail clippers and finally tax refund forms had to be completed by hand. Terrible service and even worse experience.

I can cope with delays (40 minutes). However this is my third negative experience of my procedure through immigration in the last two months. The staff I encountered on all 3 occasions were incredibly rude. They treated passengers like we were a herd of sheep barking orders and generally acting like bullies. My husband on the other hand was also annoyed to note that only 4 officers were on duty although others were visible chatting and socialising with other staff members a very bad look indeed. We have not experienced such rudeness anywhere in the world.

Travelled many times in and out of Melbourne probably only 3 out of 10 staff were nice. Always a very long queue and the check-in staff are grumpier than the passengers. Very rude especially with non English speaking passengers staff will talk loudly and keep repeating themselves. I hope Melbourne can provide a good customer service at check in. If Melbourne cant provide a good customer service at the check-in I guess we should all hope for a self check-in machine.

I travel internationally every month so have reasonable perspective on service norms. Arrived flying J class on Air China on Fri 2nd Aug. An absolute disgrace that it took 2 hours to be processed. Got through the Smart Gate in a couple of minutes. But the queue for aliens was huge and the delay on processing those pax was a major source of my ultimate slow progress. Got to carousel 4 to find it full of Malaysian Airlines bags. But the pax were still back in the immigration queue not present to pull their bags. So the conveyor belt bringing new bags just stopped. I asked baggage services for a handler to come and either put the unclaimed bags on the floor or rearrange them on the belt to fit more on. Refused to do either citing work practice rules. There are employees pulling the bags down in the basement why not up on the carousel too? Finally the MY bags were cleared and about 10 J class bags from my flight. But then no more. Eventually Y class bags and finally most of the J bags. A 90 minute wait. I contacted baggage services 3 times during this period. Walkie-talkie calls to the baggage room below described chaos down there. Then got into customs queue. It was approx 400 meters long snaking along 3 walls of the baggage hall. Two yes two customs officers were at the exit causing the backlog. Why not 10 officers? All in all an absolute disgrace. On leaving the airport it crossed my mind that in fact Melbourne Airport is a private monopoly and earns its highest income from the car park. It is reasonable to think that the company will be delighted by the slow service it raises their revenue. Food for thought.

Arrived in from NZ early Sunday evening. Reasonably short walk to passport control where there were no queues. Luggage arrived very promptly. Minor queue at customs. Could be done with more bench seating outside where hire car buses pick up. It was hard to see our bus arrive due to others waiting a considerable about of time before moving off usually without picking anyone up too! Flew out domestically to Sydney. Security queue fairly short. Didn't spend too much time in the terminal as such because we had access to the Qantas business lounge. Not a lot of seats at gate area though. Finally transited through Melbourne airport on route from Auckland to Dubai. International transit a short walk from gate with easy enough signs to follow. Security a breeze before going back into terminal to wait to get back onto flight. Skybus into Melbourne good but too many seats and not enough luggage space especially if you have big heavy bags like ours were.