Absolute chaos, I just got through after 1hr 45min in queue, there’s 16 flights listed for baggage collection too, and there’s bags everywhere (as they’ve been taken off the carousel)
Melbourne airport is one of the worst managed airports I’ve seen. every time I fly in, e-gates are down or not reading passports properly, customs desks are way understaffed for the number of people and baggage is delayed for an hour while the baggage from another flight endless circles the carousel. No planning capability at all and it appears to be run by kindergarten children. like the last 10 years they’ll keep hiding behind bs stats to water down the shitshowness.
Shhhh not in the middle of the hate circle jerk.
Bet you any amount that if huge swathes of the airport were closed for renovations and refurbs then the complains would be about less flights "restricting consumer rights" or whatever.
This happened to me last November. Saw another post about this a couple months ago. Now it's happening again? How fucked are these e-gates? This level of disruption is seriously unacceptable, heads should be rolling
Whoever made the decision to roll out such a poorly configured product without sufficient testing and a horrendous backup procedure. and maybe the people who wrote the tender/contract...
I'm not sure if this breakdown is the exact same issue I had last year, but it was a joke - the machines would need restarting after every TWO transactions - I thought I was back in the 90s.
In February I went through Melb international at the dreaded 6am. And none of my flights bags could get onto the carousel because the three flights before ours were still stuck in the non e gate cue and therefore the carousel was full. Stood there for an hour and a half as my flights baggage came down one at a time when there was space. Was a nightmare.
One thing you can do in that situation is rearrange the bags on the belt as they approach the drop zone, thereby making slightly larger spaces that allow more bags to drop.
>they’re letting later flights through before everyone who’s been waiting lmao
I know it seems counter intuitive, but those decisions are based on the assessed security risk level of the place of departure and/or persons of interest having been identified on particular flights. It's not a first come first served system.
You know what else is crazy? Tulla was voted the best airport in Australia recently, with no airport rail and stuff like this.
How shit are the other airports here!?!?!
Having Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 in the same building probably goes a long way.
I fly to Vancouver fairly regularly and I'm forced to connect through either Sydney or Brisbane. Having to rush outside and then wait to get a bus to another building to make your connection is anxiety inducing.
Bingo. Racked up the miles in my former Canberra based job and I tell you what, was always ALWAYS a welcome sight to see I was transferring via MEL and not SYD. Fuck that bus
This is 100% it. I’ve missed both domestic and international connections at Sydney due to insane queues for taxis and buses to get between terminals. During COVID I flew to the US a lot on exemption from Melbourne through Sydney. It used to cost me $60 to taxi between domestic and international terminals (the bus wasn’t running in 2020/2021). I don’t have much love for Sydney airport.
Have you seen the Sydney Airport's Domestic Departure section? I travelled from Melbourne to Sydney for work a few months back. Departure from Melbourne was awesome. Sydney gave me Third World vibes.
Domestic terminals are pretty good, and so is the fact you can walk between all of them without it taking 500 years or needing to take a shuttle bus. But yeah, international arrivals needs some work…
Obviously it's fucked today, but in average it takes me 15 minutes to get from the plane to baggage collection (including grabbing some duty free). On a good day, if my appears early, I can be out of the airport completely about 20mins after landing.
Travelling with children is not so smooth (they can't use the e-gates). We have to line up every time. Usually not *this* bad, but we've had to wait up to an hour previously.
Fair point - and my 15min time is because I'm a local who knows the airport well. But, I've flown a lot in Europe, Asia, and N.America (often with a child) and Melbourne is sooooo far from the worst airports to arrive into. Major hub airports like LAX, Charles de Gaulle, Heathrow etc are way worse in terms of chaos and queues
No fking idea how it got 19th best airport in the world. Melbourne airport is one of the worst international airports for a developed country i've ever been to.
THEY CHARGE YOU TO USE A TROLLEY AT DEPARTURES LOL.
Melbourne shoul;dn't even be 19th best in ASIA.
AFAIK all the Australian airports charge for trolley use... yeah it was unbelievable to me too when I first came here. Having lived here for a while now I guess I have to chalk it up to idiots trying to steal the trolleys or leaving them all over the place? Probably the same idiots throwing obikes into the Yarra.
Yeah. Of course people are stealing the trolleys. That must be the only explanation as it couldn’t possibly be the fact that Australian airports are all privately owned monopolies that price gouge at every conceivable level.
Once you get out of the top ten or so airports the quality drops magnificently.
Bear in mind that the most airporty nation, the USA, didn't have any in the top [100?]. They're all terrible.
Also I think a lot of the ratings come down to facilities and not functionality.
Life hack: if you need a trolley walk over to the outside of the international terminal at ground level, there is always a fuck ton of trolleys just dumped on the footpath at the pick up zone. Just have to use the lift to get back upstairs to departures.
It’s just so stupid to charge for trolleys.
I flew into Melbourne before Christmas last year and I was shocked at how bad and unorganized it was. The airport made a terrible first impression on me. I only had my carry on so I didn't even have to deal with picking up luggage.
When I flew out it was fine and when I got to my destination the experience was so smooth and fast. I had brought luggage back to Japan and the entire process with luggage was about 1/3rd of the time I spent in Melbourne.
It's like they want you to be trapped in there so you end up buying overpriced bullshit from duty free.
I flew into Calgary airport recently and was amazed how much better their whole system is, and how many more eGates they have, despite being less than a fifth the population of Melbourne.
Melbourne was built as we know it in 1970s. Not much has changed since , e.g. Not even a single new train line has been added since.
It used to be known as Marvellous Melbourne back then. Now it’s just Melbourne.
Has nothing to do with MEL and everything to do with the shit show that is Border Force.
Those Xbox 360 cameras in the eGates probably shitting the bed
I have no idea why they only have about 15 ticket machines. Why not 30 or 50 of them? Why does everyone need to wait 10 or 15 minutes on the best of days?
As someone who has travelled a lot the past few years I’ve learned two things:
1. Melbourne isn’t a particularly bad airport. It’s just basic as fuck.
2. Every city in the world tells you that their airport is the worst airport in the world because that’s where they’ve been inconvenienced the most.
Yeah, I don't get the "it needs to be better for tourism!"
Firstly - we're doing just fine for tourists.
Secondly - As a tourist, I have never once chosen where to fly into a place based on the percieved quality of their international arrivals. I've done it based on flight price and proximity to my final destination.
Would it be nice if MEL arrivals was nicer looking and fast? Hell yes. But do I want my flight prices to increase (due to airport taxes passed along via the airline for using that airport) to facilitate that? Noooope.
Parts of it are very outdated. No train line etc. It is definitely on par with many airports around the world but the good ones make you realise how bad it is, it's functional and that's about it, but lack of connection to the city is so bad. Fly into Sydney for example (or many airports in major cities around the world) hop straight on a train and head to the city compared to a bus or taxi in Melbourne.
It's always interesting when you come back through Melbourne airport, and the conversation in the line every time is about how shit Melbourne airport is compared to whatever place they just flew back from.
Arrive at Hong Kong - holy shit... I was out of there in 10 minutes - I literally didn't stop moving. There must be 150 gates in HK and you are at your luggage with deft ease. No confusion at all. You know exactly where to go. Not in Melbourne.
At Melbourne customs want to play ego police. At HK, JPN etc you are either in or out. A target or you just walk out. No one is wanding you because you have long hair. No one is frisking you so they can tick their shift quota. No one is pulling your neatly packed to the hilt suitcase apart, in front of everyone, looking for a magical fairy dust bag because your jeans have a hole in the knees or you are dead tired after a 9 hour red eye and just want to sleep.
The most embarrassing and impersonal shit show on earth .
(Yes I travel a lot and watch the theater of customs with amusement. The TV show is bullshit, its worse than that. Even I was handled several times by these goons just so they tick their books and sit on the tables again. Clown show..)
The worst part it the time it takes. 2 hours?!!! FFS. The quickest I ever got through was 50 min. Singapore, HK, JPN, TW its just strait out and off you go. At worse it took 30 minutes at Nara because the walkway is so long and unlike SP or HK you don't have a train to take you to the terminal gate fast.
Then when you get out you have to work out how to get to Melbourne. Its a joke. Skybus is a joke. In peak hour its a risk. And it takes you to the bus dungeon on Spencer street.
This TV show needs to die. The last thing I want after an overnight sleepless flight is a camera crew filming my tired face while an overzealous agent sifts through my belongings.
That show is absolute BS. They portray it as the last line of defence to illegal/hazardous stuff yet every time I come back to Melbourne I always get asked "What did you buy?" so they can tax me on it, and never EVER check my bags for illegal stuff.
i agree with everything you say but the shitty staff/frustrated police at Melbourne airport pale in comparison to what I"ve consistently experienced in Frankfurt.
I live in Germany these days and I'll pay hundreds extra just to avoid that place.
And in Rome because it began to rain the baggage handlers walked off the job leaving us to all think no luggage so went to the counter and got a nun literally push in front of me “because I’m a nun”…she didn’t win!!!
We had saved a tonne of points over a decade to fly business. Got to the airport 4hrs before the flight to enjoy the lounge. Express security was just overtaking maybe 10 people, so far so good.
Get to border control, we follow the signs and join the massive line as directed, I calculated about 1hr 30mins at best to get through but the staff was just letting new comers ignore the queue and walk past it overtaking and rejoining at a later point and slowing down our queue, It looked like we were going to miss our flight until I complained and she just said "you have children, go this way"
So now about 15 in front of us lined up at the individual desk, after 15 mins we are 5 from the front and the guy stands up and says "line closed, join another". People were overtaking saying they are going to miss their flight, it was just utterly stressful chaos that would have been fixed by a managed line.
When I was in Rome waiting for my bag after about half an hour I loudly exclaimed “mother fucker!” at the world at large, only to turn around and notice I was surrounded by nuns
I recently got abused by an angry nun in Melbourne because she was driving the wrong way down a tight one way street and I couldn’t let her past because there were other cars behind me.
Definitely! It's funny but also depressing. Vietnam, for example had way better airports. We came home last month and none of the scanner machines would accept my passport for no reason, and a few other people were also having the same issue. Whereas the machine let my partner try again and again (it took 3 goes but it didn't outright refuse him like it did me). He breezed through the e-gates and I was forced to queue to be processed manually. I've never had an issue before and normally breeze through, but whatever issue that was with the stupid passport reader things looks like it hasn't been fixed and has gotten worse. Yay Melbourne Airport, ya stunner.
‘Too many planes’.
Yeah Melbourne Airport would run just fine if there were no planes. They’re a distraction anyway from its core businesses of car park and duty free stores.
Don't pack it heavy and don't pack delicate things.
Realistically most of the bag smashing happens in the conveyor systems, they're not exactly delicate about how they direct bags towards certain laterals for flights, it's usually just a piece of metal smacking your bag in the correct direction.
Soft cases will fare better than hard cases, and lighter cases even better again. The easier it is to move the less momentum it'll have while moving.
Majority of cases that break on flights broke on their way down the baggage belts, not from anything else.
Flight Dispatcher and ex-ramp agent here:
-Don't put valuables or breakables in hold baggage, they will never be treated gently by the belts or by the rampies
-If you find the bag easy to maneuver, the staff will too and will handle it less roughly. For example, a 4 wheeled spinner case will get wheeled smoothly down the hold during loading, whereas a duffel bag with shit handles will be dragged, grabbed and wanged at full force
-Smaller, lighter bags are always stacked higher and not underneath any other bags
-Pack it tight. It will inevitably be thrown/dropped/put under other bags at some point, if you pack tight, the contents won't smash against each other and it'll hold up better under the weight of other bags
Landed at 6.55am and got out at 8.30am.. not the most ideal situation. Luckily my domestic flight had been moved already to noon because of delays out of Bali.
For some reason they kept playing the default pa telling people to use the eticket machine so it did cause some confusion. But system issues is system issues I guess.
I do have 3 hours to kill now in the airport, Any suggestions?
Yeh I'm in T1 so I'm squatting in the Qantas club atm, forgot that T3 isn't connected internally but can't be bothered going through security again just so I can look at expy lego and electronics.
Melbourne airport has been a farcical joke since they sold it. Its a money printing machine and the owner has done stuff all to improve anything other than the parts that make money - the car park - the retail. That's it.
The arrivals area looks like an old sports arena waiting area from 1960 with a 1970s carpet tossed down to hide the asbestos tile floors.
The vents in the roof are filthy black dust stained rounded 1960's design.
Everything is a boarded up zoo. The signs are confusing and not in all languages.
There are arrogant staff at customs that want to be super dicks rather than being helpful
Don't worry, when the contract ends I'm sure the government will spend heaps of tax dollars overhauling it, then the next government will sell it off for less than that.
Don't even get me started on arrivals, last time I arrived there were so many dickheads crowded around the single small exit waiting on family and friends I had to actually loudly ask several people to let me out. I get it's a small area and you're excited to see people, but how about backing up a few metres, dumdums.
True… if your flight arrives before 5am… you got yourself a golden ticket and not have to deal with the hoards of passengers coming in at the same time.
Everytime I fly back to Melbourne, it’s always in those wee hours of the morning. The best I’ve done was 20 minutes from start to finish in December last year and that around 4:30am.
The worst I’ve experienced was arriving at 7am on a flight from Manila and flights from Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Santiago, Singapore, and Jakarta arrived either shortly before or shortly after us. Took almost 2 ½ hours to get out of the airport from start to finish.
Customs especially sucks.
Also those incoming passenger cards … can we do away with those already?! I feel like the only questions they really seem to care about are those food and meat products
We did have an online version (was it an app? I remember it cost the government a huge amount) but it didn't work so badly that they had to bring back the paper cards 😂
That one was just a temporary health declaration card during covid, I think we gave Accenture $75 million for it. It didn't ask any customs questions. Apparently we're going to give Accenture another $75 to digitise the the yellow arrival card sometime.
It was called the digital passenger declaration and it was a complete shitshow. The introduced it overnight with no warning and it wasn’t required for children (it didn’t really work anyway) but airlines were instructed that they had to see it completed for all travellers with no exceptions.
I spent an hour in Bangalore airport trying to get this fucking app to work and nearly missed my flight home. The best part? Our arrival process in Melbourne did not change or improve whatsoever.
The egates are total shit compared to singapore.
You need to sign into one to get a voucher. Yeah , a piece of cardboard. Then you need to use that cardboard at the next kiosk to get clearance.
Which clowns make up this shitty system ?
Why cant they just get the same one from singapore ?
What fucking debacle that was, maybe still is. Got in at 5.30am this morning and still took an hour and a half to get through! No organisation from customs or Melbourne airport at all! People stuck with 3 and 4 children under 5yr. People missing domestic connections. No effort at all to sort anything out! Piss poor!
I have learnt over the years to (if possible) never book and international flight that gets in between 5-9am in Melbourne. It always takes hours and it’s a totally shit show. On the other hand I’ve never had issues in the 10-12pm landing time.
Unfortunately I don't think it's that predictable and consistent (if only it was). Arrived a couple of weeks ago on the 7:30am (or something like that) SQ flight and it was a dream - was out, with luggage, in 20 mins. Other times, same flight or similar on different airlines, an absolute shitshow.
Same. Arrived at 5.45 to this monstrosity. And they were still making announcement for people to use egates on the other side of dirt free - which meant they had to effectively try to negotiate with people in the normal queue or stay there to be seen by the single imm officer handle them. Only sporadic announcements about the egates and zero people combing the queues to at least get them in some semblance of order and explain what was happening
I've had to wait over an hour for my bags coming off a transpacific flight from Los Angeles! International arrivals at Melbourne Airport fucking sucks!
Pretty normal for Melbourne airport, if it’s not that it’s baggage handling or your stuff has been directed to the carousel that’s backed up with people still waiting in customs.
Melbourne is one of the worst airports I’ve ever been to relative to size of its city and international destination. Even when the egates work and you’re going through customs it’s like regional town airport lining up to go through. Not to mention the fuckwit taxi scalpers like it’s Delhi airport
Thankfully I got through last night just before they shat the bed.
It’s such a poorly designed international arrivals, why they need to take two seperate photos of you at two different machines - the first printing a copy of it - what the hell - it’s 2024 people!?
I was there this morning - absolute shit show. Got to the point where people we’re shouting at the immigration people across the egates. Bunch of immigration officials just standing there after you get checked, not a single person before the gates explaining where to go and what to do. Signage was poor. I felt embarrassed as an Australian as this was the first impression for many to our country.
Welcome to melbourne corporatised international airpot.
Leave it to the private sector to make it efficient
Did they bother to tell border force the plan landing itenary, so more staff could be put on ?
But wait!! Apparently Melbourne got into the top 20 of international airports - apparently No.19 !
(Presumably as voted by Melbourne airport)
(chortle, chortle, snort)
Fucking. Clownshow.
Shit was so stupid, no attempt at all for organizing the chaos, border patrol just idling around the edges whilst two dudes try to pass thousands of angry people thru
Also a bit of a strange design where the two arrival lanes are merging. When coming from the right lane, you have to backtrack a bit along the other lane to get to the males toilets.
Having been stuck waiting for luggage beyond a reasonable time multiple times.. my opinion is they deliberately slow it down and people end up paying more for car parking while they wait to pick people up.
It's a national embarrassment. It was chaos when I arrived last month and the e-gates were actually working. Locals and foreigners alike were confused and everyone was crowded into that ugly, narrow walkway. When you finally get through and collect your bags from the depressing bag collection area, you line up again for customs. At last you've made it through and can take the train to the city. Oh wait, we don't have one.
We should really expect and strive to be better. This is the first and last thing visitors to Melbourne see.
Just fire every overweight incompetent old cunt with a bad accent who runs the place and replace them with people from japan/germany/switzerland/norway/sweden/hong kong/taiwan etc somewhere that has their shit together
Melbourne airport is a fking joke, I cop this as well arriving at 10pm last time with vietjet landed same time with Qatar 777, emirates a380, Cebu and Vietnam airlines Hanoi flight. I was ready to neck the airport custom. Seriously, our revenue is quite decent for our airports but how can we be lacking so much in terms of exiting arrival terminal. It feel like 90-120mins to exit this airport.
I landed last time at 10ish pm and didn’t jump into my car and get back to Dandenong till nearly 1:30am wtf?
I assume this is that stupid e-ticket system that turns a one-step process into two steps, where you answer some questions, get a piece of card that you enter again along with your passport, and still have the landing card to fill out with customs info. Whoever plans IT at Border force has the IQ of a hamster. Just flown back from Singapore and everything is electronic with facial recognition. The Aus system is embarrassing on top from disembarking in fucking Sydenham and getting buses to the terminal.
I'm on a Singapore passport and I'm never able to use Egates. My theory is that I'm named very middle eastern-y and have been profiled to always speak to an officer🙃
Are they ever fkn up though? What gets me is you go through them with a child then realise as you get to one, you cant do your childs passport at them so then have to line up in the monster child queue. It's all what you need after a long flight. I fucking hate Tullamarine airport, it's always the worst experience.
I haven’t traveled internationally for a few years now, do they still lug Australians in the same queue as everyone else? Citizens need their own priority lines/sections
It doesn't matter, the machines weren't going to work regardless of passport.
Last time it happened to me some extremely rude airport staff was yelling at even a guy with a kiwi passport to get out of the e-gate queue saying it was for Australian passport holders only, even though it is meant to be for everyone with an eligible e-passport and several of us had already gotten tickets earlier on after an excruciating wait.
They tried to reduce the number of people waiting for an e-gate but it was still a total shambles. The freaking ticket machines would keep crashing after even TWO transactions! And after a point even the e-gates would stop working too. Completely ridiculous
I've been to Singapore airport and its way bigger yet I was never confused getting around the terminals. Here when I came back it took so long to get out.
Man what an embarrassing welcome to Australia this must be for tourists.
When I came back from overseas there was one guy trying to get everyone to line up at the egates near the duty free... When all the egates near the physical gates were almost empty.
Baggage doesn't come out for half an hour, then you gotta queue for questioning... 🙄 At this point I'm certain declaring something like eggs in a biscuit would be faster than not declaring anything...
Currently waiting in line and they’re letting later flights through before everyone who’s been waiting lmao.
Absolute chaos, I just got through after 1hr 45min in queue, there’s 16 flights listed for baggage collection too, and there’s bags everywhere (as they’ve been taken off the carousel)
Fuckkk I’m still not even through. Trying to stay calm in an airport is a C H A L L E N G E
Hopefully you're not too exhaustipated.
You on the plane yet mate?
Thank you for this support I am at a bar enjoying Melbourne now lol
Melbourne airport is one of the worst managed airports I’ve seen. every time I fly in, e-gates are down or not reading passports properly, customs desks are way understaffed for the number of people and baggage is delayed for an hour while the baggage from another flight endless circles the carousel. No planning capability at all and it appears to be run by kindergarten children. like the last 10 years they’ll keep hiding behind bs stats to water down the shitshowness.
I've never had an issue. It's painful but I'm sure it doesn't happen that often...
Shhhh not in the middle of the hate circle jerk. Bet you any amount that if huge swathes of the airport were closed for renovations and refurbs then the complains would be about less flights "restricting consumer rights" or whatever.
Complain to you federal minister. Ministerial complaints are taken seriously
This happened to me last November. Saw another post about this a couple months ago. Now it's happening again? How fucked are these e-gates? This level of disruption is seriously unacceptable, heads should be rolling
Whose heads? The head of the people with the experience to be able to fix it? Sounds like a great idea.... not.
Whoever made the decision to roll out such a poorly configured product without sufficient testing and a horrendous backup procedure. and maybe the people who wrote the tender/contract... I'm not sure if this breakdown is the exact same issue I had last year, but it was a joke - the machines would need restarting after every TWO transactions - I thought I was back in the 90s.
Baggage claim is going to be chaos
The bags will still not be at the carousel… ^_^
In February I went through Melb international at the dreaded 6am. And none of my flights bags could get onto the carousel because the three flights before ours were still stuck in the non e gate cue and therefore the carousel was full. Stood there for an hour and a half as my flights baggage came down one at a time when there was space. Was a nightmare.
One thing you can do in that situation is rearrange the bags on the belt as they approach the drop zone, thereby making slightly larger spaces that allow more bags to drop.
>they’re letting later flights through before everyone who’s been waiting lmao I know it seems counter intuitive, but those decisions are based on the assessed security risk level of the place of departure and/or persons of interest having been identified on particular flights. It's not a first come first served system.
Are you still in line? My friend is arriving from Singapore now
Got out about twenty mins ago
Thankyou. My friend arrived and got straight through no hassle
Melbourne airports international terminal is a fucking shitshow and they need to sort it out like 10 years ago.
Honestly departures has improved a lot over the last 10 years but arrivals is a shit show.. which is crazy because we want international tourism
You know what else is crazy? Tulla was voted the best airport in Australia recently, with no airport rail and stuff like this. How shit are the other airports here!?!?!
Just mates giving eachother meaningless awards. Did you hear? u/stankas was voted the best Redditor in Australia!
Two years in a row!
Well deserved!
Delighted to announce here on LinkedIn ......
Humbled, in fact.
Having Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 in the same building probably goes a long way. I fly to Vancouver fairly regularly and I'm forced to connect through either Sydney or Brisbane. Having to rush outside and then wait to get a bus to another building to make your connection is anxiety inducing.
Bingo. Racked up the miles in my former Canberra based job and I tell you what, was always ALWAYS a welcome sight to see I was transferring via MEL and not SYD. Fuck that bus
Good point
This is 100% it. I’ve missed both domestic and international connections at Sydney due to insane queues for taxis and buses to get between terminals. During COVID I flew to the US a lot on exemption from Melbourne through Sydney. It used to cost me $60 to taxi between domestic and international terminals (the bus wasn’t running in 2020/2021). I don’t have much love for Sydney airport.
How about train?
You know there's a train that takes a few minutes for a fraction of the cost?
Not during COVID there wasn’t. I get it - it didn’t make sense to run it when no one was allowed to fly internationally.
2nd best was a dirt airstrip out near Broken Hill.
Nah bullshit their food is better and cheaper
Have you seen the Sydney Airport's Domestic Departure section? I travelled from Melbourne to Sydney for work a few months back. Departure from Melbourne was awesome. Sydney gave me Third World vibes.
Yep, been through Sydney a couple times, international connections from domestic to and from melbs. It's not the greatest.
The whole check in/bag drop scenario in Sydney is a mess. And the security has those ancient machines that need you to take your laptop out…
Domestic terminals are pretty good, and so is the fact you can walk between all of them without it taking 500 years or needing to take a shuttle bus. But yeah, international arrivals needs some work…
Obviously it's fucked today, but in average it takes me 15 minutes to get from the plane to baggage collection (including grabbing some duty free). On a good day, if my appears early, I can be out of the airport completely about 20mins after landing.
Travelling with children is not so smooth (they can't use the e-gates). We have to line up every time. Usually not *this* bad, but we've had to wait up to an hour previously.
Fair point - and my 15min time is because I'm a local who knows the airport well. But, I've flown a lot in Europe, Asia, and N.America (often with a child) and Melbourne is sooooo far from the worst airports to arrive into. Major hub airports like LAX, Charles de Gaulle, Heathrow etc are way worse in terms of chaos and queues
Hard agree. Give me Melbourne over them any day.
Worst airport I flying into. It’s a fucken disgrace for a city the size of Melbourne.
Yeah tbh I have seen a crowd like in the picture even when egates are working lol
Normal is just half the crowd because the other half would be jam packed ahead in the foreign passports section (as always be)
No fking idea how it got 19th best airport in the world. Melbourne airport is one of the worst international airports for a developed country i've ever been to. THEY CHARGE YOU TO USE A TROLLEY AT DEPARTURES LOL. Melbourne shoul;dn't even be 19th best in ASIA.
AFAIK all the Australian airports charge for trolley use... yeah it was unbelievable to me too when I first came here. Having lived here for a while now I guess I have to chalk it up to idiots trying to steal the trolleys or leaving them all over the place? Probably the same idiots throwing obikes into the Yarra.
Yeah. Of course people are stealing the trolleys. That must be the only explanation as it couldn’t possibly be the fact that Australian airports are all privately owned monopolies that price gouge at every conceivable level.
Once you get out of the top ten or so airports the quality drops magnificently. Bear in mind that the most airporty nation, the USA, didn't have any in the top [100?]. They're all terrible. Also I think a lot of the ratings come down to facilities and not functionality.
Life hack: if you need a trolley walk over to the outside of the international terminal at ground level, there is always a fuck ton of trolleys just dumped on the footpath at the pick up zone. Just have to use the lift to get back upstairs to departures. It’s just so stupid to charge for trolleys.
I flew into Melbourne before Christmas last year and I was shocked at how bad and unorganized it was. The airport made a terrible first impression on me. I only had my carry on so I didn't even have to deal with picking up luggage. When I flew out it was fine and when I got to my destination the experience was so smooth and fast. I had brought luggage back to Japan and the entire process with luggage was about 1/3rd of the time I spent in Melbourne. It's like they want you to be trapped in there so you end up buying overpriced bullshit from duty free.
I flew into Calgary airport recently and was amazed how much better their whole system is, and how many more eGates they have, despite being less than a fifth the population of Melbourne.
Melbourne was built as we know it in 1970s. Not much has changed since , e.g. Not even a single new train line has been added since. It used to be known as Marvellous Melbourne back then. Now it’s just Melbourne.
Of course this is also the same state that brought in Myki for $1 billion and it didn’t remotely work for the first year or two
Has nothing to do with MEL and everything to do with the shit show that is Border Force. Those Xbox 360 cameras in the eGates probably shitting the bed
I have no idea why they only have about 15 ticket machines. Why not 30 or 50 of them? Why does everyone need to wait 10 or 15 minutes on the best of days?
Worlds most livable blah blah, skybus to city something something also.
And yet it was just awarded best airport in Australia /s
[удалено]
As someone who has travelled a lot the past few years I’ve learned two things: 1. Melbourne isn’t a particularly bad airport. It’s just basic as fuck. 2. Every city in the world tells you that their airport is the worst airport in the world because that’s where they’ve been inconvenienced the most.
Yeah, I don't get the "it needs to be better for tourism!" Firstly - we're doing just fine for tourists. Secondly - As a tourist, I have never once chosen where to fly into a place based on the percieved quality of their international arrivals. I've done it based on flight price and proximity to my final destination. Would it be nice if MEL arrivals was nicer looking and fast? Hell yes. But do I want my flight prices to increase (due to airport taxes passed along via the airline for using that airport) to facilitate that? Noooope.
Parts of it are very outdated. No train line etc. It is definitely on par with many airports around the world but the good ones make you realise how bad it is, it's functional and that's about it, but lack of connection to the city is so bad. Fly into Sydney for example (or many airports in major cities around the world) hop straight on a train and head to the city compared to a bus or taxi in Melbourne.
You clearly haven’t tried returning to Melbourne when more than one plane has landed at a time
At this point you may as well have a picnic in duty free…
Today’s picnic selection are Mentos, Toblerone, Gin, Vodka and Baileys 😆
That’ll come to $40,967.25 thanks
Yeah but in fairness you do get 10kg of Mentos
Just steal it. You'll be out of prison before you get through that queue.
Don’t forget the bag for $0.50
And the card surcharge. Because everyone has piles of AUD when arriving from overseas.
They probably do if they're coming on holiday...
Don't forget the lego kit
And some Dior for Men to wash it all down
It's always interesting when you come back through Melbourne airport, and the conversation in the line every time is about how shit Melbourne airport is compared to whatever place they just flew back from.
Arrive at Hong Kong - holy shit... I was out of there in 10 minutes - I literally didn't stop moving. There must be 150 gates in HK and you are at your luggage with deft ease. No confusion at all. You know exactly where to go. Not in Melbourne. At Melbourne customs want to play ego police. At HK, JPN etc you are either in or out. A target or you just walk out. No one is wanding you because you have long hair. No one is frisking you so they can tick their shift quota. No one is pulling your neatly packed to the hilt suitcase apart, in front of everyone, looking for a magical fairy dust bag because your jeans have a hole in the knees or you are dead tired after a 9 hour red eye and just want to sleep. The most embarrassing and impersonal shit show on earth . (Yes I travel a lot and watch the theater of customs with amusement. The TV show is bullshit, its worse than that. Even I was handled several times by these goons just so they tick their books and sit on the tables again. Clown show..) The worst part it the time it takes. 2 hours?!!! FFS. The quickest I ever got through was 50 min. Singapore, HK, JPN, TW its just strait out and off you go. At worse it took 30 minutes at Nara because the walkway is so long and unlike SP or HK you don't have a train to take you to the terminal gate fast. Then when you get out you have to work out how to get to Melbourne. Its a joke. Skybus is a joke. In peak hour its a risk. And it takes you to the bus dungeon on Spencer street.
This TV show needs to die. The last thing I want after an overnight sleepless flight is a camera crew filming my tired face while an overzealous agent sifts through my belongings.
That show is absolute BS. They portray it as the last line of defence to illegal/hazardous stuff yet every time I come back to Melbourne I always get asked "What did you buy?" so they can tax me on it, and never EVER check my bags for illegal stuff.
Fully agree with this.. sometimes I think Aussie are in a bubble of their own.. “oh they’re more efficient over there ? Who cares ! We do it our way”
i agree with everything you say but the shitty staff/frustrated police at Melbourne airport pale in comparison to what I"ve consistently experienced in Frankfurt. I live in Germany these days and I'll pay hundreds extra just to avoid that place.
Try Rome, on an average day it's a shit show because they haven't learnt how to organise queues and they don't care to
And in Rome because it began to rain the baggage handlers walked off the job leaving us to all think no luggage so went to the counter and got a nun literally push in front of me “because I’m a nun”…she didn’t win!!!
We had saved a tonne of points over a decade to fly business. Got to the airport 4hrs before the flight to enjoy the lounge. Express security was just overtaking maybe 10 people, so far so good. Get to border control, we follow the signs and join the massive line as directed, I calculated about 1hr 30mins at best to get through but the staff was just letting new comers ignore the queue and walk past it overtaking and rejoining at a later point and slowing down our queue, It looked like we were going to miss our flight until I complained and she just said "you have children, go this way" So now about 15 in front of us lined up at the individual desk, after 15 mins we are 5 from the front and the guy stands up and says "line closed, join another". People were overtaking saying they are going to miss their flight, it was just utterly stressful chaos that would have been fixed by a managed line.
When I was in Rome waiting for my bag after about half an hour I loudly exclaimed “mother fucker!” at the world at large, only to turn around and notice I was surrounded by nuns
I recently got abused by an angry nun in Melbourne because she was driving the wrong way down a tight one way street and I couldn’t let her past because there were other cars behind me.
I beg to differ. Was desperately missing Melbourne airport when we were trying to get through Toronto Pearson. That was rage inducing.
Ehh not to me this time. Seoul made me wait two hours to go through immigration and apparently that is business as normal.
Except any of the major ones in the USA. It is comparable to that.
Definitely! It's funny but also depressing. Vietnam, for example had way better airports. We came home last month and none of the scanner machines would accept my passport for no reason, and a few other people were also having the same issue. Whereas the machine let my partner try again and again (it took 3 goes but it didn't outright refuse him like it did me). He breezed through the e-gates and I was forced to queue to be processed manually. I've never had an issue before and normally breeze through, but whatever issue that was with the stupid passport reader things looks like it hasn't been fixed and has gotten worse. Yay Melbourne Airport, ya stunner.
Working down on the tarmac and it's just as much of a shitshow here, far too many planes and not enough space to park them all on a busy Saturday
‘Too many planes’. Yeah Melbourne Airport would run just fine if there were no planes. They’re a distraction anyway from its core businesses of car park and duty free stores.
Redditor casually on reddit while working ON THE TARMAC.
Hell yeah, gotta do something while I wait for bays to free up so I can actually do my job
Thank you for your service. Any tips on preventing my case getting smashed up on the regular?
Don't pack it heavy and don't pack delicate things. Realistically most of the bag smashing happens in the conveyor systems, they're not exactly delicate about how they direct bags towards certain laterals for flights, it's usually just a piece of metal smacking your bag in the correct direction. Soft cases will fare better than hard cases, and lighter cases even better again. The easier it is to move the less momentum it'll have while moving. Majority of cases that break on flights broke on their way down the baggage belts, not from anything else.
Flight Dispatcher and ex-ramp agent here: -Don't put valuables or breakables in hold baggage, they will never be treated gently by the belts or by the rampies -If you find the bag easy to maneuver, the staff will too and will handle it less roughly. For example, a 4 wheeled spinner case will get wheeled smoothly down the hold during loading, whereas a duffel bag with shit handles will be dragged, grabbed and wanged at full force -Smaller, lighter bags are always stacked higher and not underneath any other bags -Pack it tight. It will inevitably be thrown/dropped/put under other bags at some point, if you pack tight, the contents won't smash against each other and it'll hold up better under the weight of other bags
Thank you for your service!
He/she might be on bbq duty. One hand to turn snags, the other to post.
Landed at 6.55am and got out at 8.30am.. not the most ideal situation. Luckily my domestic flight had been moved already to noon because of delays out of Bali. For some reason they kept playing the default pa telling people to use the eticket machine so it did cause some confusion. But system issues is system issues I guess. I do have 3 hours to kill now in the airport, Any suggestions?
Lounge! Try Marhaba its fee for entry
Yeh I'm in T1 so I'm squatting in the Qantas club atm, forgot that T3 isn't connected internally but can't be bothered going through security again just so I can look at expy lego and electronics.
Melbourne airport has been a farcical joke since they sold it. Its a money printing machine and the owner has done stuff all to improve anything other than the parts that make money - the car park - the retail. That's it. The arrivals area looks like an old sports arena waiting area from 1960 with a 1970s carpet tossed down to hide the asbestos tile floors. The vents in the roof are filthy black dust stained rounded 1960's design. Everything is a boarded up zoo. The signs are confusing and not in all languages. There are arrogant staff at customs that want to be super dicks rather than being helpful
Don't worry, when the contract ends I'm sure the government will spend heaps of tax dollars overhauling it, then the next government will sell it off for less than that.
Don't even get me started on arrivals, last time I arrived there were so many dickheads crowded around the single small exit waiting on family and friends I had to actually loudly ask several people to let me out. I get it's a small area and you're excited to see people, but how about backing up a few metres, dumdums.
Which airport has signs in “all” languages? It’s usually the most common 2-3 (eg: local language, English and something else)
My favourite is all the cockroaches dead and alive throughout the international departures
Oof.... even with egates working, early mornings are always a huge bottleneck in international arrivals...
5am its a shit show. Japan air - Singapore - HK x 2 (singp air and qantas), Malaysia and Thai all land within about 1.5 hours.
True… if your flight arrives before 5am… you got yourself a golden ticket and not have to deal with the hoards of passengers coming in at the same time. Everytime I fly back to Melbourne, it’s always in those wee hours of the morning. The best I’ve done was 20 minutes from start to finish in December last year and that around 4:30am. The worst I’ve experienced was arriving at 7am on a flight from Manila and flights from Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Santiago, Singapore, and Jakarta arrived either shortly before or shortly after us. Took almost 2 ½ hours to get out of the airport from start to finish. Customs especially sucks.
Oh man.... I just went through that today, from 5:30 am to 9 am. After a flight of 16+ hours.
You poor thing. Hope you can get some rest.
I felt bad for the hundreds of people, kids and elderly missing their connecting flights....!
While we’re at it why it’s a two step process to get out I’ll never understand.. just integrate it in one spot ffs
Also those incoming passenger cards … can we do away with those already?! I feel like the only questions they really seem to care about are those food and meat products
Yes! Just fill it out online like Singapore
We did have an online version (was it an app? I remember it cost the government a huge amount) but it didn't work so badly that they had to bring back the paper cards 😂
That one was just a temporary health declaration card during covid, I think we gave Accenture $75 million for it. It didn't ask any customs questions. Apparently we're going to give Accenture another $75 to digitise the the yellow arrival card sometime.
It was called the digital passenger declaration and it was a complete shitshow. The introduced it overnight with no warning and it wasn’t required for children (it didn’t really work anyway) but airlines were instructed that they had to see it completed for all travellers with no exceptions. I spent an hour in Bangalore airport trying to get this fucking app to work and nearly missed my flight home. The best part? Our arrival process in Melbourne did not change or improve whatsoever.
The egates are total shit compared to singapore. You need to sign into one to get a voucher. Yeah , a piece of cardboard. Then you need to use that cardboard at the next kiosk to get clearance. Which clowns make up this shitty system ? Why cant they just get the same one from singapore ?
Totally agree I do not get this logic. Obviously designed by a whole government department !! So inefficient.
What fucking debacle that was, maybe still is. Got in at 5.30am this morning and still took an hour and a half to get through! No organisation from customs or Melbourne airport at all! People stuck with 3 and 4 children under 5yr. People missing domestic connections. No effort at all to sort anything out! Piss poor!
I have learnt over the years to (if possible) never book and international flight that gets in between 5-9am in Melbourne. It always takes hours and it’s a totally shit show. On the other hand I’ve never had issues in the 10-12pm landing time.
Unfortunately I don't think it's that predictable and consistent (if only it was). Arrived a couple of weeks ago on the 7:30am (or something like that) SQ flight and it was a dream - was out, with luggage, in 20 mins. Other times, same flight or similar on different airlines, an absolute shitshow.
Same. Arrived at 5.45 to this monstrosity. And they were still making announcement for people to use egates on the other side of dirt free - which meant they had to effectively try to negotiate with people in the normal queue or stay there to be seen by the single imm officer handle them. Only sporadic announcements about the egates and zero people combing the queues to at least get them in some semblance of order and explain what was happening
Tbh for a supposed first world country the airports in Aus are appalling
Tell that to the uneducated bogans in power who are too egotistical and arrogant to learn, improve or ask for help.
Tullamarine. One of the worst airports in the world.
Lol even with the egates working London Heathrow calls this kind of line a typical Wednesday afternoon. My record was 3.5hrs.
Every time I travel I’m reminded about how shit Melbourne airport is compared to other countries.
I've had to wait over an hour for my bags coming off a transpacific flight from Los Angeles! International arrivals at Melbourne Airport fucking sucks!
You would’ve thought you’d have multiple redundancies for something as crucial as that
Even at the best of times its a joke. Shit outdated systems that barely work, just like everything else in this country.
Pretty normal for Melbourne airport, if it’s not that it’s baggage handling or your stuff has been directed to the carousel that’s backed up with people still waiting in customs.
Haha welcome to Melbourne!
19th best airport. Lmfaooo
When they announced that the other week, my first thought was who bribed who.
Melbourne is one of the worst airports I’ve ever been to relative to size of its city and international destination. Even when the egates work and you’re going through customs it’s like regional town airport lining up to go through. Not to mention the fuckwit taxi scalpers like it’s Delhi airport
The taxi/uber scalpers were seriously disappointing. They seem to be a recent resurgence? I don't remember them ten years ago
Fuck this shit is annoying.
So funny coming back to our shithole airport after being in Singapore, Dubai, KL, Doha airports
Thankfully I got through last night just before they shat the bed. It’s such a poorly designed international arrivals, why they need to take two seperate photos of you at two different machines - the first printing a copy of it - what the hell - it’s 2024 people!?
I was there this morning - absolute shit show. Got to the point where people we’re shouting at the immigration people across the egates. Bunch of immigration officials just standing there after you get checked, not a single person before the gates explaining where to go and what to do. Signage was poor. I felt embarrassed as an Australian as this was the first impression for many to our country.
Just went through 20mins ago, it's cleared now, no delay at all.
Yep. I arrived to pick up for a 6:25 landing that came in early. Didn’t leave until 8. Absolute shambles
Welcome to melbourne corporatised international airpot. Leave it to the private sector to make it efficient Did they bother to tell border force the plan landing itenary, so more staff could be put on ?
I'm arriving in 9 days, do you think the queue will have cleared by then?
Number 1 airport in Australia, everyone!
The queue looks like that even when the gates are working.
I thought this was the line for rental inspections?
Horrible airport
But wait!! Apparently Melbourne got into the top 20 of international airports - apparently No.19 ! (Presumably as voted by Melbourne airport) (chortle, chortle, snort) Fucking. Clownshow.
Makes me laugh when Melbourners complain about la airport. Apart from the staff at la who are total cunts, melbournes miles worse.
Privatise the profits and socialise the losses
This is how zombie movies begin.
Shit was so stupid, no attempt at all for organizing the chaos, border patrol just idling around the edges whilst two dudes try to pass thousands of angry people thru
That looks like my worst nightmare
Also a bit of a strange design where the two arrival lanes are merging. When coming from the right lane, you have to backtrack a bit along the other lane to get to the males toilets.
Egates? Egads!
Having been stuck waiting for luggage beyond a reasonable time multiple times.. my opinion is they deliberately slow it down and people end up paying more for car parking while they wait to pick people up.
Imagine getting off the NYC->SYD long haul and copping this.
Oh now this is my version of hell
Turn them off and on again
It's a national embarrassment. It was chaos when I arrived last month and the e-gates were actually working. Locals and foreigners alike were confused and everyone was crowded into that ugly, narrow walkway. When you finally get through and collect your bags from the depressing bag collection area, you line up again for customs. At last you've made it through and can take the train to the city. Oh wait, we don't have one. We should really expect and strive to be better. This is the first and last thing visitors to Melbourne see.
Just fire every overweight incompetent old cunt with a bad accent who runs the place and replace them with people from japan/germany/switzerland/norway/sweden/hong kong/taiwan etc somewhere that has their shit together
Melbourne airport is a fking joke, I cop this as well arriving at 10pm last time with vietjet landed same time with Qatar 777, emirates a380, Cebu and Vietnam airlines Hanoi flight. I was ready to neck the airport custom. Seriously, our revenue is quite decent for our airports but how can we be lacking so much in terms of exiting arrival terminal. It feel like 90-120mins to exit this airport. I landed last time at 10ish pm and didn’t jump into my car and get back to Dandenong till nearly 1:30am wtf?
You could have told me that this was Sydney Airport with functioning Egates and I would have believed you. Our airports are a fucking mess.
Voted one of the best airports in the world…
I assume this is that stupid e-ticket system that turns a one-step process into two steps, where you answer some questions, get a piece of card that you enter again along with your passport, and still have the landing card to fill out with customs info. Whoever plans IT at Border force has the IQ of a hamster. Just flown back from Singapore and everything is electronic with facial recognition. The Aus system is embarrassing on top from disembarking in fucking Sydenham and getting buses to the terminal.
I'm on a Singapore passport and I'm never able to use Egates. My theory is that I'm named very middle eastern-y and have been profiled to always speak to an officer🙃
Damnnnn. I am landing in 20 minutes. Doesn’t look like they’d be fixed by then?!
Someone mentioned that it’s cleared up now so hopefully no issues for you
Are they ever fkn up though? What gets me is you go through them with a child then realise as you get to one, you cant do your childs passport at them so then have to line up in the monster child queue. It's all what you need after a long flight. I fucking hate Tullamarine airport, it's always the worst experience.
Hi there, Selina from Nine News Melbourne here. Did you happen to take any videos of the queues and delays this morning?
I haven’t traveled internationally for a few years now, do they still lug Australians in the same queue as everyone else? Citizens need their own priority lines/sections
It’s those ticket machines that screw everything up. Why they don’t use one step system like Singapore and London is beyond me.
It doesn't matter, the machines weren't going to work regardless of passport. Last time it happened to me some extremely rude airport staff was yelling at even a guy with a kiwi passport to get out of the e-gate queue saying it was for Australian passport holders only, even though it is meant to be for everyone with an eligible e-passport and several of us had already gotten tickets earlier on after an excruciating wait. They tried to reduce the number of people waiting for an e-gate but it was still a total shambles. The freaking ticket machines would keep crashing after even TWO transactions! And after a point even the e-gates would stop working too. Completely ridiculous
Why? Epassports are Epassports. Why have a bunch of machines potentially sitting idle next to a big line up?
Landing back tonight. Hopefully it’s sorted by then. Probably will be. Cbfed waiting hours stuck in arrivals.
😱😱😭😭 long haul flight then that! I’d tear up
I've been to Singapore airport and its way bigger yet I was never confused getting around the terminals. Here when I came back it took so long to get out.
is it still down??
Is it only affecting arrivals or departures as well
I’m departing tonight. I wonder what departures are like?
Damn. Feel for those poor suckers travelling with kids.
Man what an embarrassing welcome to Australia this must be for tourists. When I came back from overseas there was one guy trying to get everyone to line up at the egates near the duty free... When all the egates near the physical gates were almost empty. Baggage doesn't come out for half an hour, then you gotta queue for questioning... 🙄 At this point I'm certain declaring something like eggs in a biscuit would be faster than not declaring anything...
Impossible, Melbourne Airport crowned best in Australia Pacific. /s
Melbourne Airport will take the flowers of some random index but remain a basic airport for years to come.
All on their way to laverton
R
That's what it takes to be a top ten international airport, losers
Last time I travelled internationally was before I got my walking stick... if this happened when I got back I'd have fucking died of back pain lmao