Holidays and Airport 'Chaos' since COVID

[jrfsp]

Doesn't look a fun day to be travelling through SYD

'Perfect storm': Staff shortages, 'inexperienced' travellers blamed for Sydney airport chaos

Sydney Airport's chief executive apologises to passengers languishing in hour-long lines to pass through security.

www.abc.net.au

According to the article this is the second day running. Not sure if anyone here has been through?

 

[Supersonic Swinger]

About to head there, 2 pm for a 6 pm flight with QF. Will report back...

 

[Daver6]

Again with blaming passengers? What a lame cop out.

 

[Supersonic Swinger]

I am currently half way through the priority queue in the QF terminal, the queues are all the way back to the terminal entrance. There are airport staff handing out bottles of water to those in the queue.

Terminal 2 looks worse, as we drove past the queue had snaked out to run the entire length of the departures footpath doubling back at least once!

 

[jrfsp]

‘I’m not blaming them’: Qantas CEO walks back criticism of passengers for Sydney Airport delays

Alan Joyce angered passengers by saying they contributed to long queues by not removing laptops and aerosols at security. Chronic airport shortages meant several security lanes were closed.

www.theage.com.au

Alan's blaming passengers.....
"Mr Joyce agreed, stating at a press conference that “our customers are not match fit”.

“I went through the airports on Wednesday and people forget they need to take out their laptops, they have to take out their aerosols ... so that is taking longer to get through the queue.”"

Airlines would be far better off if they refused to fly passengers

 

[Lynda2475]

Terminal 2 looks worse,

I've only ever flown out of terminal 2 a handful of times since Ansett collapsed, but it always seems way more chaotic than terminal 3. I think in part because of JetStar passengers trying to avoid paying for check luggage so have much more cough in their carry-ons which requires more checking.

That said during peak travel periods all security screening lanes should be open and dragons should be policing priority lines.

Sounds more like the airport staff aren't match fit then passengers. Plus I imagine this awful rain isn't helping.

What concerns me in the article is the quote from passenger saying they were worried about their London flight as neither terminal 2 or 3 is international, he was either very lost or there are similar issues at Terminal 1. With the airport not opening 24*7 I am wondering whether I'm going to need to be be queued up before Terminal 1 even opens for my next international which departs ahead of Anzac Day weekend, usually I just arrive 3 hours before for international and 1 hour for domestic.

 

[Subharpoon]

‘I’m not blaming them’: Qantas CEO walks back criticism of passengers for Sydney Airport delays

Alan Joyce angered passengers by saying they contributed to long queues by not removing laptops and aerosols at security. Chronic airport shortages meant several security lanes were closed.

www.theage.com.au

Alan's blaming passengers.....
"Mr Joyce agreed, stating at a press conference that “our customers are not match fit”.

“I went through the airports on Wednesday and people forget they need to take out their laptops, they have to take out their aerosols ... so that is taking longer to get through the queue.”"

Airlines would be far better off if they refused to fly passengers

First Tully, now Joyce. BUFFS Qantas!

 

[aus_flyer]

Was there yesterday. Absolute chaos.

 

[AIRwin]

Was there yesterday. Absolute chaos.

T2 or T3?

 

[Quickstatus]

London flight

Maybe connecting via another airport

"Mr Joyce agreed, stating at a press conference that “our customers are not match fit”.

First the call centres, now the checkin. Me thinks AJ and his company and the airport are not match fit.
Don’t worry AJ, some of your customers are doing a DSC mileage run as a warm up

 

[kamchatsky]

It is stuff like this that VA needs to open the premium entry ASAP. It saves so much time …..

 

[eastwest101]

From the reports of yesterday apparently 3 of the 8 lanes at security at T2 were closed, normally pre-covid there would have been 8 out of 8 lanes of security open but even then it sometimes couldn't cope with the volume of passengers.

From what I saw of the T3 Qantas domestic part of SYD yesterday in comments here there also was not the full complement of security lanes open there either.

Looks to be a systematic structural/achitectural problem then Covid-19 close contact rules and previous Covid-19 layoffs of security staff and inability to hire quickly enough for a return of large volumes of pax to the skies.

Not just in SYD either, judging by others comments and media articles from Manchester and other airports round the world. Seems pretty amateurish though considering the airlines would be able to predict an hour by hour breakdown of planned aircraft departures and total passenger numbers in their booking system so it should really just be a process of giving these numbers to the security contractors for the next few days and adjusting the size of the workforce to meet demand. Its not like people wait until the day before they fly to book their flights.

 

[Lynda2475]

then Covid-19 close contact rules

We know this isn't a cause at all given the only place you still have to do app check-ins is nursing homes and can only be a close contact if someone you live with has covid, simply being at work when a coworkers has covid or a shop etc is no longer a reason to iso in NSW.

Is it the airline or SYD airport responsible for Security screening staff? School holidays began for many earlier this week, so they should have scheduled staff to be able to man all lanes given the know surge in flight bookings.

 

[AIRwin]

Is it the airline or SYD airport responsible for Security screening staff?

I'd say airport - otherwise there will be separate security queues for VA and JQ given they share the same terminal?

 

[Supersonic Swinger]

It just took the best part of an hour to get through the Qantas premium lane. Both premium and regular queues are snaking to the entry doors.

One of the regular lanes is closed because of a water leak from all the rain, as well as one of the premium lanes being used as a dedicated "staff / people who's flight is about to depart" security lane.

Security staff I spoke to think that it is nothing more than over the last 4 days, all the pent up travel demand with the removal of all border restrictions is now falling with the upcoming school holidays.

I long for 6 weeks ago when I was literally the only person going through the QF premium lane at a similar time of day...

 

[Lynda2475]

I'd say airport - otherwise there will be separate security queues for VA and JQ given they share the same terminal?

That is what I thought, so funny they are asking AJ re the reasons, when the airport should be the ones answering and admitting they failed to schedule enough staff.

 

[Astro]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1512242328735719425

It's going to be an unpleasant month all round by the looks

 

[jrfsp]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1512242328735719425

It's going to be an unpleasant month all round by the looks

Air travel has been hit hard with layoffs during the pandemic and now things are ramping up in a tight labour market and no one wants to work for the minimum wage. Its happening all over the world.

"Sydney Airport said the security company, Certis, was still rebuilding its workforce after a long period of minimal flights during the pandemic.

Certis, a Singaporean company, is advertising for multiple “aviation screening officers” at the airport."

 

[eastwest101]

That is what I thought, so funny they are asking AJ re the reasons, when the airport should be the ones answering and admitting they failed to schedule enough staff.

Yeah - its up to the airport to provide the facilities that can stay open without the roof leaking onto electronic equipment, so airport owners fault there, but the staffing levels themselves would be under the control of the security company contractors managment? They would be making the day to day decisions of rostering on X number of people for Y hours at each terminal. Surely there would be some sort of information gathering from all the airlines to the security contractors as to approximate numbers of departing pax each day?

Insufficient staff at checkin counters, and insufficient self serve kiosks and baggage drops also add to congestion of pax in T2 in the pre-security area, and this congestion then interferes with the pre-security lines (seems especially bad at T2 but can also happen at T3 as well so I think its an architectural thing at T2 as well).

 

[eastwest101]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1512242328735719425

It's going to be an unpleasant month all round by the looks

Love the comments about the construction works at MEL, now that things are really busy at airports again - time to start construction and disrupt terminal operations! [insert facepalm here] All they need now is for someone to dig up a buried telco line/water main/power intrastructure and they will have the full hat-trick of incompetency.