Sydney Airport

Not Verified | I agree with all the other reviews here, it is the most poorly designed airport in the world. I honestly can not say I been to an airport designed with more emphasis on inconvenience, little investment as possible and emphasis on revenue raising. The design adds incredible stress to flying to or from Sydney. Poorly located exits. Difficult to traverse food courts to get to gates. Incredibly long journey to pickup area, with difficult terrain for baggage and close to cars and multiple road crossing, making travelling with children stressful. Untrained staff which can be rude and unreasonable.

Not Verified | Give yourself more than 2 hours to check in at this airport or you might miss your flight. Unlike the streamlined self-check in and bag drop process at Melbourne Airport, you have to wait in an enormous queue at Sydney. They have 6 people manning a bag drop for more than 400 passengers, it's an absolute nightmare. The terminal has some nice food options but you'll probably be sprinting for your gate.

Not Verified | Express pick domestic arrivals too far from arrivals hall, hopeless airport and staff not friendly. Parking is dismal, no consideration for incoming passengers at all, the people who designed and control this airport should be sacked.

Not Verified | Terrible place that falls apart with anything more than a light shower or gentle crosswind, even with tiny passenger numbers in Covid era. We were delayed in the air for an hour due to lightning then forced to sit in aircraft for another hour, prohibited from walking 10 metres to the terminal. Safe enough to land but not to walk 10 metres in a light shower of rain. Would never happen in Asia. Avoid at all costs while we wait for the new Sydney airport to relegate this dump to history.

✅ Trip Verified | Are you kidding me Qantas. With coronavirus around you leave us all in the plane while the engineer inspects the plane. Why would you not have the plane ready and then load passengers. Make no sense to me and seems like you dont care about people catching the virus. Been stuck not moving for over 20mins. I better not get sick.

✅ Trip Verified | I travel through Sydney Airport a lot and have seen it change over the years, but for me it does not rank highly compared to similar sized airports around the world and certainly not as the main airport for a world city. The first thing is getting there. The underground train connection to the city was a long time coming, but it also came with a hefty price which is currently over $14 a single trip. Traffic at the upper level departure ramp is tedious, you often crawl along from the bottle neck that forms as three lanes merge to one to go up the ramp. The departure terminal on busy days is just simply a seething mess of people and very limited seating near the check in counters. The departure area prior to clearing security is just drab and old, with a small food area that is always full. They were refurbishing the departure security screening access late 2019 and it appeared to look fresh but still led to the maze of ribbon lane channels. Security is relatively quick and I like going through the full body scanner as it reduces need to remove belt etc. Inside and past security the departure area is more modern but still not bog enough for a city like Sydney and seating again can be at a premium and it just feels cramped. The food court does have a nice range and has good views out the glass to the apron. Very pricey duty free though! Arriving for me has always been easy, no need to walk far and the process to get a self service ticket for the Smart Gates is straight-forward and easy to exit straight to the carousel and out. The arrivals area again is very small once you have cleared customs and always congested. Need better instructions for the Smart Gate self serve kiosks, as many new arrivals and even Australian citizens have no idea how to use them or what they are for. I am looking forward to Badgerys Creek airport opening as Sydney's second in 2026 and hope Mascot or Sydney Airport gets a massive makeover of its International Terminal. Unfortunately not an airport I can recommend.

✅ Trip Verified | There is obviously a problem with congested air space as despite being nearly an hour early we were not permitted to land until our allotment. Then after landing we had to wait approximately 20 minutes for a gate. Despite this I was impressed as compared to Melbourne. Immigration was speedy and our bags came out efficiently. Customs was equally efficient. We saw the Virgin domestic transit sign and followed that with our bags. Didn’t have to walk very far then we caught the bus to the domestic terminal, that was very crowded but there were lots of places to eat and plenty of “normal” shops, not just upmarket ones. It was a surprisingly positive experience. I’d recommend Sydney over Melbourne any day.

✅ Trip Verified | I was very disappointed. Flew with my daughter less than 2 years old. 15min before boarding while waiting at the queue they requested my to close the yo-yo stroller and carry the baby while waiting along with the bags and then walk 200-300 meters to the plane. So bad and unacceptable. I expected this airport to be family and kids friendly but unfortunately my expectations got destroyed! Unbelievable.

Not Verified | The carpets in the gate areas were excessively dirty. They should be vaccumed regularly. Such a nice airport let down badly in this area. Maintenance need to monitor the same as toilets are. Lots of people passing through and not a good look. Carpet tiles are stained and littered withchewing gum/.

Not Verified | Hard to imagine how this airport could more mismanage ground transport. Roads are chaotic and poorly planned, Uber tank too small, just one bus service and trains hugely overpriced. While some is outside the control of the airport company, there is much they could do.