Holidays and Airport 'Chaos' since COVID

[jrfsp]

Homes hit and trees toppled amid more wild WA weather, but power restored at Perth Airport

At least Perth Airport has power now

Quite a few issues with 737/ A320 transcon flights requiring tech stops yesterday and today due to strong headwinds!

QLD-WA unsurprisingly hardest hit with longest flights and lack of widebodies

Yesterdays VA466 had a flight time of 6:20!

 

[Cossie]

The only issue I had arriving this morning on QF2 was that we were due in just after 5am, captain said not enough ATC’s had come in to work so we had to circle over the southern highlands until 6am. We were first in the queue and it was a good run. Checked in bag at the domestic counter at international, I missed my 7am flight to Canberra, but was put on a later 717, my view down the back.

View attachment 285822

On arrival into Canberra we waited for quite a while for the air bridge person to do their thing, well over 20 minutes, not the first time this has happened here.

Found out a friend was on BA15 that morning and we were both meant to be on the 7am flight to Canberra. Her flight landed just after 5 and she said it was probably the first one in.
Because she had come in on a BA flight she had to get the external bus to domestic as Qantas wouldn’t send her bag through. She only just made her 7am flight.
Would have been nice to catch up on the plane, a surprise for both of us.

 

[JohnM]

Homes hit and trees toppled amid more wild WA weather, but power restored at Perth Airport

At least Perth Airport has power now

One can always rely on Hi-Vis to... - The Bell Tower Times | By The Bell Tower Times | One can always rely on Hi-Vis to add some colour to Perf Airport. Power outage tonight (robbie_f_83 IG)

17K views, 64 likes, 1 loves, 24 comments, 7 shares, Facebook Watch Videos from The Bell Tower Times: One can always rely on Hi-Vis to add some colour to Perf Airport. Power outage tonight...

fb.watch

 

[Princess Fiona]

10 minutes from F Check-in to saying hi to Nestor at the Flounge this morning.
Happy days

 

[jb747]

Friends abandoned by JQ in Bali a day or so back. And now a different group abandoned by Virgin. Normality is a long way from returning...

 

[flyer89]

I noticed flying to GC last week that the little issues that in normal times would’ve have gone unnoticed by passengers as they were resolved quickly and had no effect on a flight have become quite significant issues in the current situation.

Inbound Flight arrived 20 minutes late (normal), then there was an issue with catering (normal). These two things contributed to a delay of more than an hour. Then when boarding did commence it was done in a very apathetic manner.

Everything is sluggish and rusty at the moment which is to be expected. I observed similar things going on at the gates nearby.

 

[VPS]

You'd think people in the UK would know that some of the rules have changed but apparently not

Ryanair backs West Country airport that denied mum's holiday

A family's holiday plans were scuppered by a Brexit passport rule

www.bristolpost.co.uk

 

[jrfsp]

Meanwhile in Bali, sounds like DPS has had a complete meltdown. 5+ hr immigration queue yesterday!

Bali Airport Has Become A Nightmare With Hours Long Immigration Lineups!

Total mayhem at Bali airport as lines are out of control.

loyaltylobby.com

Australian school hols are over - where we’re these peeps coming from?

The “concierge” service mentioned sounds like a good investment.

Tourist That Claimed 5 Hour Line Up At Airport Asked To leave Bali

Bali Airport have responded to a travel blog that accused the airport of having 5-hour queues last week. Management have confirmed events.

thebalisun.com

Not everything should be believed

 

[SYD]

Tourist That Claimed 5 Hour Line Up At Airport Asked To leave Bali

Bali Airport have responded to a travel blog that accused the airport of having 5-hour queues last week. Management have confirmed events.

thebalisun.com

Not everything should be believed

He actually states in the article that he got through relatively quickly (but longer than he expected) because he’d prepaid for some concierge service (which TBH sounds like some sort of legalised G&C…).

Sounds like the authorities are taking a narrow view that since he took 50mins, he can’t say someone else took 5 hrs…

 

[jb747]

Friends abandoned by JQ in Bali a day or so back. And now a different group abandoned by Virgin. Normality is a long way from returning...

Update. Both abandoned a second time (by Virgin and JQ).

 

[albatross710]

Arrived in Bali this week (and as a frequent visitor prior to covid,) now it is a mess.

My flight arrived into a far gate which gives a natural spread of arrivals processing as everyone walks at different paces.

Visa on Arrival queueing 'system' has a separate line for each agent. We were unfortunately in the slower agent queue. This is then further exacerbated by the airport staff whom direct the most recent flight arrivals to the newly opened agents (instead of a queue which snakes towards all agents). That's an easy fix. They did have a bypass queue for families with young kids.

Speaking of Visa on Arrival I thought it was abandoned in 2017 or 2018. It's back at Rp 500,000 that's $50/person (except for ABTC of course).

Once the VOA was paid then there was a further queue for the Immigration processing. At least here they have the snaking queue system. Also a bypass queue for 60+.

All up a midday arrival took 2 hours. This is compared to previous arrivals of <20 minutes and no charges.

I genuinely think the arrival process is doing damage to the Bali reputation which was quickly offset by a $10 massage and a few Bintang.

 

[albatross710]

Update. Both abandoned a second time (by Virgin and JQ).

I did see JQ had a cancelled flight on Sunday BNE-DPS (JQ57) which was the operating aircraft for JQ44 to MEL. What a mess.

 

[jakeseven7]

Another disaster this week at Sydney domestic budget terminal T2 - aptly described as the ‘seventh circle of hell’

——-

‘Sydney Airport is an absolute joke and Sydney is not a world city’​

“If you’re thinking of flying out of Sydney airport on a Monday morning I have two suggestions: reschedule for another day”

The traffic queue to get into the terminal stretched back nearly a kilometre and, once inside, the queue to get through security was so long, airport staff were redirecting travellers into a second line, snaking behind the check-in desks, to cope with the overflow.

Tension was palpable, a woman was crying at having missed her flight and a new mood was evident: if you wanted to fly today you had to take matters into your own hands

https://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/incidents/sydney-airport-is-an-absolute-joke-and-sydney-is-not-a-world-city/news-story/b049da997cd623307aad2ad619a8aa1c?amp

 

[SCM]

Man I'm really afraid, I haven't flown domestically in a while, and am flying with VA Fri-Sun this week. Usually I arrive maybe an hour or less before boarding but now I'm thinking 3 hours just to be safe

 

[kerfuffle]

Man I'm really afraid, I haven't flown domestically in a while, and am flying with VA Fri-Sun this week. Usually I arrive maybe an hour or less before boarding but now I'm thinking 3 hours just to be safe

What time is your flight? 2 hours should be sufficient (as someone who's had 8:30/9 a.m. flights over the past month from T2)

 

[OATEK]

Having passed through London City (LCY) and Berlin (BER) this week, both operated very smoothly. Smaller airports seem to have an edge over the larger ones.

 

[justinbrett]

20 minutes from hotel to Flounge today in SYD to catch BA16. Airport seems pretty busy but well staffed.

 

[RealtimeY]

45 mins in economy security line on Wednesday to catch BA16, 6 security lanes operating. It still seemed no better than April

 

[justinbrett]

45 mins in economy security line on Wednesday to catch BA16, 6 security lanes operating. It still seemed no better than April

I was in the BA F queue, but Y didn’t seem that long.

As for security and passport control, was single digits deep - very much back to normal today.

 

[SCM]

Does seem like the situation wasn't so bad this Friday at SYD. It was quite crowded but I got into the baggage drop and through security within 30 mins, big props to VA they had a lot of staff on hand, and every counter and kiosk was open as well. Then I ended up with an hour spare, but I wasn't complaining!

Now at BNE it was even quicker, although the premium entry was not open for some reason, but I guess it wasn't really needed, I went through security in about 8 mins.