My Worst Airport - Tullamarine, Melbourne. What's Yours?

[Kolo]

As a HBA local I have to transit through somewhere and I'll always choose MEL over SYD. Transferring between terminals needs to be as painless as possible and I'm sorry but SYD just doesn't cut it...

 

[MEL_Traveller]

This has made Australia a joke and has had an negative impact on inbound tourism.

is there actual evidence to support this claim? I've hear people complain Australia is 'too far' and 'too expensive', but never that they can't visit because they don't like body scanners. But I'm open to the evidence on this one!

 

[jastel]

Which isn't entirely sensible since they don't charge taxis to drop off passengers. When I had the taxi gig, about 50% of the time I wouldn't bother wasting time getting onto the rank to pick up after dropping off at the airport. That was before they started charging taxis to pick up.

They are trying to start charging taxis for drop-offs as well...it is occurring overseas.

 

[medhead]

I have a problem with the existence of body scanners, and not for the reason you assume (although that "issue" does have a "more study is needed" tag).
The US and UK are the only nations on the planet that have the full liquid bans. Australia has the full range of bans on International flights only. Other EU members have limited bans. No other nation has liquid bans on flights that do not involve the US, UK or Australia (and even that appears to be selective depending on carrier and even gate used). The entire liquid ban is pure insanity based on nothing more then a vague "threat" that never got past initial planning and is scientifically impossible to carry out. There was no threat and there is no need whatsoever for the bans.

Australia is the only nation with body scanners that forces people though them with no option of an opt out. There was meant to be an opt out allowed and all public consultation and testing was done with that as the basis. That was changed with no warning when the bill to allow them was tabled. Every single public submission to both house and senate committees stated that an opt out was required. Both committee reports recommended it be returned. The public submissions and committee reports were all ignored. This puts Australia as the only nation with a more restrictive body scanner implementation then the land of the paranoid. This has made Australia a joke and has had an negative impact on inbound tourism.
The scanners do not work as advertised. They have an unacceptability high false positive rate, do not detect what they were claimed to be "needed" for, and are simply not needed in the face of other less invasive options.
Body scanners have no place at all in any airport security line. Period. They are nothing more then a complete waste of money that serve no valid purpose.

I might rate MEL as one of the best airports in Australia, but I rate all Australian international terminals as some of the worst on the planet because of the body scanners.

There is not a more research is needed tag on body scanners, except by people who claim an effect despite there being no mechanism for harm.

There was one massive change between the trial and implementation. They did not proceed with X-ray back scatter scanners. The trial was not the same as what was implemented. That accounts for the opt-out change.

As for the efficiency of the scanners. I assume those points were raised with the enquiries. What was the findings of both enquiries for the false positives and related issues?

 

[mannej]

Correct me if I have missed the point, but Himeno you claim it is scientifically impossible to bring down a plane with LAGs.

If my memory serves me correctly, PR434 went bloody damn close (and was more luck compared to anything else).

Philippine Airlines Flight 434 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[DavBlayn]

I haven't personally traveled to all that many terrible airports, but one that I have a bit of a gripe with is Perth Airport. The only way to get to the airport (without a car) is by taxi of the TransPerth bus. The taxi costs a small fortune (once it cost me $90 to get to T2 from Swanbourne), and the bus takes an age. Next, the international departure lounge is just terrible (unless it's substantially changed since 2013), as is the arrivals area; the whole place is just desperate for some refurbishment -- which is luckily under way. The Qantas terminal (T4) is always crowded, there's no power outlets and the wifi sucks, although T3 is better by far.

All around, the only thing I can think of when I need to go through Perth Airport is, "I wish I had lounge membership". It's terrible.

 

[Deleted member 29185]

As I frequently fly out of CNS int at which time only two low pax flights are departing, I basically cop the full body scan every time. I can't see the problem. It's not invasive, it's not time consuming and it's not an overall impost. I accept the advice that these things don't pose a health risk, although I do listen to the arguments. To date, I put most of the negative argument I've heard in the same basket as the wind turbines create stress, headaches and cow discomfort basket.

 

[Foreigner]

CGK (Jakarta) for:

⊙ traffic from/to city area

⊙ dull terminal

⊙ poor lounge options


PS: And having to work through visa on arrival. Bad.

 

[AustraliaPoochie]

I do like MELi.
Its the easiest airport to transit for me, incoming or outgoing.
ADL only has a small (Air) NZ plane to AKL, which to some might suit, but not to me.
Having a choice of international airports that has flights to NZ, MEL wins hands down, easy to walk from T2 to T1/T3, without having to worry about a tranfer bus or transfer train (ala SYD/BNE).
Departing Australia, 1hr45mins if no lounge pass, easy in MEL.
In SYD 1hr45mins no lounge pass and I would be constantly looking at watch or mobile phone clock!
Returning to Australia, 2hr30mins in MEL and I am happy.
SYD, 2hrs30mins to transfer pre immigration to domestic, I would be worried.

 

[featheast]

Alright, I have read thru all the posts under this thread while waiting my 2 hours delay at LST for flight back to MEL. Apparently there was a system meltdown of VA which was causing a significant network damage.
So back to the topic, I wouldn't rate MEL anywhere close to the worst airport, but there a few problems which really really hurt its impressions for most non-frequent economy passengers:
1) Ridiculously long wait time of inbound immigration queue. For international travellers, this is there first feeling, albeit the worst feeling of the country, if you wait for more than an hour to get a stamp. I know certain country is worse, but can't Australia do any better? When you see a huge queue all the way back to the DF section, and the half of the immigration counters are empty, you know there is a problem. Efficiency at SIN, HKG are not only achieved by design/flow, but can be easily learnt by putting more people on duty. This is especially true at 9pm/10pm time.
2) Ridiculously long wait time of inbound custom check. I know things have been changed during the last couple years regarding the passenger flow, but again when only 2-3 people are guarding the form check and decide which way eventually you are going, a bottleneck is formed. I don't know any stats to support my argument, but my feeling is many many pax with no declaration needed are still queued for a long time until they get a chance talk to the man to waive through. Is this necessary?
3) Ridiculously long wait time of outbound immigration queue. This is similar to point one, so I won't repeat here.
The 3 things above, which can be concluded in one word: WAIT - is the killer of this airport.

Of course, as most of the members here are either fly J or have status, things may be different. But given the majority travellers will have to wait, I still rate MEL or indeed any Australian international airport very very low.

 

[Renato1]

1) Ridiculously long wait time of inbound immigration queue. For international travellers, this is there first feeling, albeit the worst feeling of the country, if you wait for more than an hour to get a stamp. I know certain country is worse, but can't Australia do any better? When you see a huge queue all the way back to the DF section, and the half of the immigration counters are empty, you know there is a problem. Efficiency at SIN, HKG are not only achieved by design/flow, but can be easily learnt by putting more people on duty. This is especially true at 9pm/10pm time.
2) Ridiculously long wait time of inbound custom check. I know things have been changed during the last couple years regarding the passenger flow, but again when only 2-3 people are guarding the form check and decide which way eventually you are going, a bottleneck is formed. I don't know any stats to support my argument, but my feeling is many many pax with no declaration needed are still queued for a long time until they get a chance talk to the man to waive through. Is this necessary?
3) Ridiculously long wait time of outbound immigration queue. This is similar to point one, so I won't repeat here.
The 3 things above, which can be concluded in one word: WAIT - is the killer of this airport.

I think you have just agreed with my initial posts 100%.
The wait times are routinely ridiculous.
Regards,
Renato

 

[RooFlyer]

<snip>
1) Ridiculously long wait time of inbound immigration queue. For international travellers, this is there first feeling, albeit the worst feeling of the country, if you wait for more than an hour to get a stamp. I know certain country is worse, but can't Australia do any better? When you see a huge queue all the way back to the DF section, and the half of the immigration counters are empty, you know there is a problem. Efficiency at SIN, HKG are not only achieved by design/flow, but can be easily learnt by putting more people on duty. This is especially true at 9pm/10pm time.
2) Ridiculously long wait time of inbound custom check. I know things have been changed during the last couple years regarding the passenger flow, but again when only 2-3 people are guarding the form check and decide which way eventually you are going, a bottleneck is formed. I don't know any stats to support my argument, but my feeling is many many pax with no declaration needed are still queued for a long time until they get a chance talk to the man to waive through. Is this necessary?
3) Ridiculously long wait time of outbound immigration queue. This is similar to point one, so I won't repeat here.
The 3 things above, which can be concluded in one word: WAIT - is the killer of this airport.
<snip>.

Although I wouldn't rate MEL as anything close to the worst airport in my experience (see post up thread), I do agree there seems to be a significant problem with the operation of the Australian Customs and Boarder Protection Service at the airport (and I'm not sure if this is an 'airport' issue, or a ACBPS issue, out of the airport's control). As I'm always transiting to/from HBA to go international, I usually have a choice of MEL or SYD for my international port. I choose MEL for departure and SYD for arrival where I can, the latter purely based on bad arrival experiences at MEL, mainly customs over a number of years.

Immigration isn't usually a problem - express lane on departure and SmartGate on arrival gets me through. But bag retrieval and customs! OMG. A number of worse-than-third-world experiences, I think always due to inadequate numbers of customs officers rostered on and the management of the customs queue.

If there are bunched arrivals, caused by early / late flights, this will be apparent to both the airport and ACBPS at least 30 mins, probably an hour before the pax arrive, and this should be plenty of time for the ACBPS to bring 'surge' capacity on, but they don't, or won't. My single worst international arrival experience, at ANY airport in the world (includes shockers at CDG, Ouagadougou, Casablanca, Accra), was at MEL. The bag pick up area was a fiasco - a long, snaking queue snaking round and round the baggage claim area. 'Security' people shouting - yes, shouting at the pax (who, from their dress etc you might deduce did not have English as a first language) - Keep in line! Go THERE! MOVE forward! I told one of them in no uncertain terms to get some manners and to stop behaving like a jailer. Like any bully, that shut him up (for a while). I think there were 2 customs officers on duty.

I wrote a formal letter of complaint to the head of the organisation at MEL, copied to CEO MEL airport, the union, the Minister and a couple more. Answers from the union were enlightening. The time people are rostered on and off is based on scheduled arrivals; there is virtually no flexibility for the roster to change in the light of (say) bunched aircraft arrivals. Answer for the head of ACBPS showed that after receiving my complaint, they tracked me through the airport, identifying me from when I went through immigration - that was creepy. They said my time through customs etc 'was borderline acceptable'. It was a non answer of course and continued the simple contempt the ACBPS shows arrivals to Australia at MEL.

 

[NM]

[Mod Tat]
Stick to the topic, folks.
[/Mod Hat]

 

[mikenz]

I like Melbourne International. The upgrades have made it a more pleasant experience and with the food outlets now showcasing some of the city's best restaurants I think it would leave visitors with a good impression of the city.

Yes it's frustrating walking through DF for 5 minutes, but it's 5 minutes.

I have to agree with most here that the connectivity between terminals is a great thing compared to others where you have to travel (and pay for the pleasure!) between terminals.

Customs queues can't really be helped by the airport. The desks are manned by employees of the customs service. They plan their rosters based on the flights that are scheduled and the origin/destination of those flights. They would struggle with any delays if that meant that more flights arrived at one time. Because this is a government service their prime responsibility is managing what and who comes in and out of Australia. Customer Service isn't on their list of priorities, so if we have to wait an hour because there aren't enough staff, that's what will happen. With govt agency budgets being slashed I see this getting worse before it gets better. Smartgate helps sometimes.

With the issues of chosing a city based on its airport, I agree that a bad airport experience could put you off a city. I dread going to the US through LAX and almost always find an alternative route. I'm almost close to giving up on AUH too, the queues are a killer, but even more frustrating is the hour it takes from landing to getting off the plane, onto and off a bus and into the terminal.

 

[TomVexille]

Yes it's frustrating walking through DF for 5 minutes, but it's 5 minutes.

If it takes you 5 minutes to get through the MEL DF, you're doing something wrong

 

[ReLoad]

Landed this morning on QF36. Wheels touched down at 5.07am, was in a taxi at 5.25am. If that's the worst airport around ill eat my hat.

 

[slc767338]

If there are bunched arrivals, caused by early / late flights, this will be apparent to both the airport and ACBPS at least 30 mins, probably an hour before the pax arrive, and this should be plenty of time for the ACBPS to bring 'surge' capacity on, but they don't, or won't. My single worst international arrival experience, at ANY airport in the world (includes shockers at CDG, Ouagadougou, Casablanca, Accra), was at MEL. The bag pick up area was a fiasco - a long, snaking queue snaking round and round the baggage claim area. 'Security' people shouting - yes, shouting at the pax (who, from their dress etc you might deduce did not have English as a first language) - Keep in line! Go THERE! MOVE forward! I told one of them in no uncertain terms to get some manners and to stop behaving like a jailer. Like any bully, that shut him up (for a while). I think there were 2 customs officers on duty.

I wrote a formal letter of complaint to the head of the organisation at MEL, copied to CEO MEL airport, the union, the Minister and a couple more. Answers from the union were enlightening. The time people are rostered on and off is based on scheduled arrivals; there is virtually no flexibility for the roster to change in the light of (say) bunched aircraft arrivals. Answer for the head of ACBPS showed that after receiving my complaint, they tracked me through the airport, identifying me from when I went through immigration - that was creepy. They said my time through customs etc 'was borderline acceptable'. It was a non answer of course and continued the simple contempt the ACBPS shows arrivals to Australia at MEL.

This has been exactly my experience maybe 2 or 3 times at MEL.

Disorganised chaos really, and I can think of one repeat offender (a certain female customs officer) who displays the same attitude to 'customer service' that you have described.

Disgusting really, manners cost nothing and when arriving off a 14 hour flight at OMG o clock the last thing anyone wants is to be rudely bossed around by some over-zealous Customs official.

 

[dajop]

Landed this morning on QF36. Wheels touched down at 5.07am, was in a taxi at 5.25am. If that's the worst airport around ill eat my hat.

My experience with the early wave of flights is exactly this. I think the bunfight ensues when, to be frank, there is a bit of profiling going on with respect to quarantine protection (and likelihood of people bringing in suspicious items, particularly food, such as when flights from China, Vietnam etc arrive. With flights from SIN, there also seem to be more people who can use electronic gates (AU, UK & SG passport holders in case of flights coming from west of Australia), than those coming from North Asia.

Likewise outbound, mid morning seems to be the worst time. Late afternoon outbound, is usually very quiet, often only 10 mins from checkin to lounge. On several occasions I've wound up in the normal immigration queue, as there have only been only 1 or 2 pax in that queue, despite having access to all three queues with APEC card and (left over) express passes.

 

[burrco]

Re: the explosives testing. I may be desperately lonely but 90%+ of the time the guys at MEL are very friendly and I'm happy to spend a minute or two engaged in friendly banter/small talk as they go about their business.

 

[Dr Ralph]

Re: the explosives testing. I may be desperately lonely but 90%+ of the time the guys at MEL are very friendly and I'm happy to spend a minute or two engaged in friendly banter/small talk as they go about their business.

For me entry points into the US, such as LAX or Dallas are hopeless. I've lost MANY hours in immigration and TSA screening for onward domestic flights.