Melbourne Airport

Terrible queuing experience coming in through immigration and going out through security. Had an express pass for immigration but afterwards felt that I would have been better off in the regular queue as I nonetheless waited 20 minutes. The fact that crew members are ushered to the front at security and immigration thereby significantly lengthening the waiting time for normal passengers who get to watch as 30+ individuals enter the front of the queue is maddening. Why not have separate queues for crew with additional staff? I also did not understand the layout of the departure area. After clearing security and customs I passed a load of duty free stores although with no seating areas and no cafés until afterwards. Not that I had time to browse - I was stuck in the queue for too long.

Melbourne immigration staff are too casual. I am waiting in line whilst two immigration officers are chatting with each other whilst at the same time both processing a passenger with almost 200+ waiting in queues. This needs to change - unprofessional staff. Finally long queues due to 3 flights arriving - why is this an issue! There has to be ways around this to better service passengers and significantly reduce wait times. I am a frequent business traveller through Asia and the U.S and I tell you this does not happen! I can understand the occasional mishap or slip but this has to be the 6th time I have seen something like this in two years in Melbourne.

Very impressed with immigration and baggage handling at Melbourne. We were off the plane and in our hire car in about 40 minutes. Hope the return is as smooth.

Departures area is generally ok although no free internet or Wi-fi. The arrivals area is poor in several respects - charging for baggage carts is plain mean. The baggage claim area is woefully inadequate even for an Airbus A330 - there is simply not enough space on the carousel meaning that the bags queue up in the chute and are released one at a time as others are claimed. This leads to long delays in baggage recovery. Presumably bags from a fully loaded A380 or 747 take twice as long to recover. The customs area is also cramped and subject to long queues. The outside bus area is chaotic and poorly signed.

International Departing experience was palatable although fees for a luggage trolley and parking detracts from the positives significantly. From a process point of view departure wasn't too bad. International Arrivals experience was a complete disaster. Despite our flight arriving on time it took us over 2 hours from that point to exit the terminal. Queues for passport control were well back into the Duty free area. It took 45 mins to get through the Aust and NZ passports queue with a small tired child in tow. Despite our luggage being on the carousel when we arrived at baggage claim the scene was one of utter chaos. A never ending queue of tired travelers with no discernible beginning point. There were no staff directed travelers to the right areas/queue. When we finally found a staff member he said he didn't know where the queue started and suggested we follow a lady who was also looking. International travelers were left to an unmanaged rabble. Lots of arguments between travelers for pushing in etc. We eventually 'found' a queue end and proceeded to pin step around the baggage carousels for 1 and a quarter hours with a by now very unhappy tired little one. We have been using the international airport at Melbourne for over ten years consistently. In the past 18-24 months the arrivals area has steadily declined to the point we would consider a domestic flight to avoid it.

My comments are limited to collection of passengers on arrival into Melbourne. There seems to be a lot of work being done at the moment presumably to improve traffic flows through the airport. The evidence so far is that it is an abject failure. I arrived on a flight from Adelaide last night and planned to be picked up from the assigned area. However traffic was absolutely chaotic there so we asked our daughter to pick us up in the departure area and proceeded to go upstairs. We were then told that we would be fined $200 if we attempted be board a vehicle in this area. We then changed our plans again and told our daughter that we would walk outside the airport and wait at McDonalds! It's a joke and a disgrace and I can only assume the authorities are trying to discourage private cars unless they use the car park and pay their exorbitant fees (often higher than the airfare itself)!

Nice modern airport it has all you need. Queuing times seem to have gone down at passport control in the last few months which is good. Arrivals is nothing special but the new departure areas are great and you can get sneaky free power along some benches where you can also lay down comfortably. Bags were available almost as soon as we go to the belt too.

I have travelled through the airport a few times for international trips over the past years. Depart from here has always been quite a smooth affair especially on Jetstar who seem to have extra short waiting times for check-in. Departures section is well-lit comfortable and easy to navigate. Deletion of the upstairs observation decks and windows to the food court on Level 1 are a sad move but place no impact on overall operations. Departures staff seem to be kind. International arrivals however are a completely different story. While they have added extra parking spaces for A380 aircraft's the immigration and customs facilities have become smaller and slower. MEL has the worst arrivals experience I have experienced more so than airports like Manila and Dhaka. On my most recent return to Australia it took 2 hours to clear immigration with the queues stretching through to the duty free section. Arrivals staff are rude and impatient hardly a welcoming face for first time foreign visitors. This is before we even get to the building itself which has almost no windows on the lower levels along with low ceiling heights cold lighting and an industrial-feel ambience. There is a real need for extra customs and immigration space (not just extra aircraft gates). The existing building has served us well over the past 40 years but is now outdated and unable to cope with the capacity demands of modern high-capacity aircraft. Other side notes are the over-priced parking and lack of meaningful (and affordable) public transport to and from the city 25kms away. Its a nicer experience flying out of here than Sydney airport but now far behind the larger and newer facilities found in Asia.

We had a lousy experience at Melbourne airport. We were told to discard the hot water within our thermal flask meant for our baby food at the security check point to immigration. It is known and stated that such are exception for baby essentials yet we were told otherwise at the check point. Also told to obtain an onboard luggage weight tag from our airline. Nevertheless we followed and were told by our airline that such tag is not required. Airline staff accompanied us to the security check point but the person who told us to do this had disappeared. We wanted to purchase something from the duty free and the sales assistant was nowhere in sight. When we walked over to another counter we spotted the sales assistant on the phone. We stood there waiting for her to assist but she treated us as though we were invisible. Our encounter at the tax refund counter was even worse.

Inadequate even after the latest refurbishment. Of most concern is international departure passenger processing. Several times in the last two years departed abroad from Tullamarine and each time the following experience. Extremely long queues which get even longer when you enter the international terminal from the public concourse after check-in and outgoing passengers join one line. These queues switch back on themselves multiple times. This is the upgraded airport! Airport management please note: we are paying passengers have a look at how it's done at Changi. On a domestic flight being dropped off by taxi not on the upper roadway but on the entrance ramp with a few inches of crumbling footpath between me the rail and a long drop to the ground below. A walk to the terminal along this heavily trafficked footpath. I'm travelling abroad again in 2013 and really looking at how I can avoid Melbourne airport.