Is 'bussing' common?

[Melburnian1]

@Melburnian1 it appears as though your question was framed as do MEL regularly use buses. From the MEL airport release you paraphrased:

I and most others will/have answered from the perspective of most other airports, rather than just focusing on MEL. Not sure what the actual intent of your question was so I’ll answer both.

I think the only time in about 50 transits through MEL where I have used a bus, was arriving on a Rex Saab340. Certainly not for an international flight.

Thank you Scarlett.

You were the first one to pick up on the 'intent' of my question.

I wasn't attempting to discuss domestic bus transfers for QFd, VA or ZL - only international airports in Oz

Given the discussion has expanded to overseas airports, a common experience has been domestic flights with 5J at MNL that uses T3. This terminal also has many international flights: 5J, CX, EK, EY, QR, SQ and QFi are some of the airlines using T3. Eventually 5J domestic is to move to the older T2 at NAIA. MNL is handling 45 million outwards passenger journeys a year (combined international and domestic), so busier than SYD or MEL.

I have also experienced a bus transfer at MCT off a WY flight. This is probably due to 'bunched' c.0600 hours arrivals as WY endeavours to ensure almost everything connects efficiently at its hub.

 

[Himeno]

A Finnair aircraft in the qantas freight area. I reckon I've definitely observed busses to that stand off area dead center in front of the first lounge at Sydney.

I saw the same when I was on the bus to T1 on New Years Day at the start of this trip. One of the AY wet least flights parking by the freight area with buses.

The JAL arrival I had in 2019 with buses had the aircraft park at the bay near the cargo terminal just next to the entry to the perimeter road which the QF transfer buses use to get between T1 and T3.

 

[Forg]

Out of interest is there any pattern to these DOH bus gates?
Just in the last 12 months alone I’ve done
KUL-DOH
DOH-DXB
AUH-DOH
DOH-ADL
SIN-DOH
DOH-SHJ
Not a single bus gate on any of those flights. Is it luck or the destinations?

Is it maybe the airline rather than the origin or destination that’s the determination?

 

[jase05]

Is it maybe the airline rather than the origin or destination that’s the determination?

Mine have always been on QR so I was wondering if if was European or Asian flights or a certain time of the day. Trying to see if there is a pattern

 

[RooFlyer]

Is it maybe the airline rather than the origin or destination that’s the determination?

I've sometimes thought that it was the airline choosing a bus gate rather than an airbridge because bus gate is cheaper (I assume, again). Maybe gate charges escalate during busy times and this helps sort out who gets the gate?

But that wouldn't explain the situation at DOH on QR.

 

[Forg]

Mine have always been on QR so I was wondering if if was European or Asian flights or a certain time of the day. Trying to see if there is a pattern

I suspected (apparently incorrectly) that an airline’s “home port” likely gets that airline better access to facilities, although I guess it’d depend on the flights:aerobridges ratio. I’d kinda think at SYD, the chance of a bus to board a QF A380 would be massively smaller than anything run by a low-cost Asian airline for example. Mebbe there’s just a lot of flights going through Doha, and Qatar is an unusually large proportion of flights for an airport?
Anyhoo I don’t know, I’m treating this like we’re standing ‘round in the bar up the back of the ‘plane & shooting the poo to kill time.

 

[Warragul]

I suspected (apparently incorrectly) that an airline’s “home port” likely gets that airline better access to facilities, although I guess it’d depend on the flights:aerobridges ratio. I’d kinda think at SYD, the chance of a bus to board a QF A380 would be massively smaller than anything run by a low-cost Asian airline for example. Mebbe there’s just a lot of flights going through Doha, and Qatar is an unusually large proportion of flights for an airport?
Anyhoo I don’t know, I’m treating this like we’re standing ‘round in the bar up the back of the ‘plane & shooting the poo to kill time.

Or whether the aircraft has a long turnaround ( or going to the hanger) maybe a factor.
I reckon the number of potential pax on an A380 may discourage the user of a bus bay, at SYD anyway, due to number of buses and time that would take. That's assuming that space regarding the A380 not encroaching on other bays is not an issue.

 

[SYD]

Out of interest is there any pattern to these DOH bus gates?
Just in the last 12 months alone I’ve done
KUL-DOH
DOH-DXB
AUH-DOH
DOH-ADL
SIN-DOH
DOH-SHJ
Not a single bus gate on any of those flights. Is it luck or the destinations?

CGK<->DOH I’ve done this sector 4x in 6 mths and bus in / bus out every time (although SYD+1 had an airbridge once - very fortunately because a schedule change squished a 2 hr layover to 45 mins!)

Other recent flights:
DOH-MAD (IB metal) bus departure
AMS-DOH bus arrival
DOH-MUC bus departure
BCN-DOH last weekend, yay - airbridge band no secondary security screening.

These have all been A350/B787 flights. You’d expect an A380 would get an airbridge (or three). Precovid, I had plenty of buses to/from 777s.

The other PITA is they start boarding bus gates ~1hr 15min prior instead of ~45mins. So you can be sitting in the lounge and suddenly notice that your flights boarding 30 mins early…. You get to the gate and the Priority line is empty but there’s a conga line for the buses. The staff tell you to take a seat, the J bus is 15 mins away…. So you get on the pleb bus anyway to at least get your PDB since you’ve left the lounge early…

Back to the OP and as others have mentioned, LCCs might regularly use buses as a way to save money, but you really don’t want MEL to head down the slippery slope of buses becoming normal ops for the main carriers.

On my last trip, I had my first ever RyanAir experience. It wasn’t awful, but we paid for one of us to have priority boarding and overhead locker space for our winter jackets. We then all boarded the same buses to get to the plane…

 

[lovetravellingoz]

View attachment 428093

Live example here. SQ237 just arrived from Singapore and parked a bus bay.

I flew SQ237 in mid December and it also went to a Bus Bay in MEL after it left SIN an hour late.


Overall bus transfers on international flights over many years has been rare . I think this may have been my second.

I have had a few on domestic flights though.

 

[Forg]

On my last trip, I had my first ever RyanAir experience. It wasn’t awful, but we paid for one of us to have priority boarding and overhead locker space for our winter jackets. We then all boarded the same buses to get to the plane…

J on CI was a bit like this … J priority queue, walk out to bus, then wait ‘til it’s jam-packed with Y+J before it heads to the ‘plane.

At least we were in F on the EK A388 to AKL … entire A388 via the front stairs, to a bus, lucky we were out first!

 

[WilsonM]

I've had bus gates at SYD off a CX A350, which seemed quite odd. Its also common enough for the VA departures to ZQN, for example.

 

[drron]

We used to be bussed at SYD on a few occasion when flying QF back from Bangkok. However we moved to QLD so back from International to BNE and a limo home.
We have also gone to staying at a hotel between flights and not connecting so if it happens no worries. We do have a same day connection later this year flying BKK - DOH -MAN so guess we will be bussed in DOH. This post makes it inevitable.

 

[Forg]

We do have a same day connection later this year flying BKK - DOH -MAN so guess we will be bussed in DOH. This post makes it inevitable.

Murphy’s Law says that this post proves you’re expecting & have planned for the bus … so it won’t happen.

 

[elanshin]

On my last trip, I had my first ever RyanAir experience. It wasn’t awful, but we paid for one of us to have priority boarding and overhead locker space for our winter jackets. We then all boarded the same buses to get to the plane…

RyanAir also has their own built in stairs to their 737s to save even more money.

 

[Harrison_133]

As a data point, the following international flights used bus gates in Sydney today (23 Jan):

Departures

• NZ110 AKL
• QF143 AKL
• VA161 ZQN
• QF121 ZQN
• QF161 WLG
• JQ123 VLI
• QF127 HKG

Arrivals

• JQ38 DPS
• QF128 HKG
• QF138 CHC
• QF162 WLG
• QF124 ZQN
• DL41 LAX
• JQ14 KIX

 

[Himeno]

Out of interest is there any pattern to these DOH bus gates?
Just in the last 12 months alone I’ve done
KUL-DOH
DOH-DXB
AUH-DOH
DOH-ADL
SIN-DOH
DOH-SHJ
Not a single bus gate on any of those flights. Is it luck or the destinations?

I haven't noticed any patterns.
All my QR flights have been connections between US and EU, mostly east bound, but a couple of west bound.
Just had DFW-DOH-AMS, both flights had jet bridges (though had been starting to think we were getting stairs for the AMS flight anyway with the mess of the boarding process)
Had IAD-DOH-BER in mid 2023 and the BER flight boarded from a gate with a bridge, and we went down to board buses anyway.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

I could be mistaken here but isn’t bussing to the terminal preferred over the jetbridge approach? After all you’re dropped off right at immigration, you don’t have that mile long walk in the terminal