Recent Experiences with Qantas' terminal transfer at SYD

[jpp42]

Yes but having to trail all across the airfield to another terminal some distance away makes it also difficult. For me next time it's easy.....I fly from origin to Singapore, no need for bag pick up...and then connect directly to where I want to go in Australia ignoring the carry on at SYD.

Oh sure, no one disagrees that transfers at e.g. MEL are much better, if you're going somewhere where that's feasible. But the fact is that thousands (?) of people manage fine with this transfer daily and it gets them where they want to go, at likely the best possible price. There's a network effect at SYD where more carriers fly there, because there are more domestic connections than anywhere else, driving more competition and better pricing. You have to assume that many people with separate tickets are price-sensitive (though I realise sometimes it's just that interlining doesn't exist).

Anyway, thanks all for the confirmation that transferring from a separate ticket is fine!

 

[Katie]

Just transferred through this morning.

After a messy mosh pit to get through customs - backed up through Duty Free, then a section after the shop in the middle blocked off, we were all hustled over to the left side, through some cattle runs, then over to the right side and down the ramps. Let into the main immigration room in batches to queue up at machines.
Then the usual queues for customs decs.

I mention all of this because it sets the scene for going to QF domestic transfer.

We get to transfer, queue up in the Business line. I cut through the economy line to get to the loo, went back to Mr Katie when done.

A bus arrives, and the driver only boards from the business queue. An annoyed pax in the economy line called out “what about economy passengers?”

I was happy to see a second bus right behind that bus, but I’m a little stumped and feel awkward about the priority line at the transfer bus when priority should be given to passengers with sooner flights.

 

[Scarlett]

A little later this morning it was nearly empty in the QF domestic transfer area at SYD T1. No wait to drop bags, or clear security or to scan and get on the bus.

But then the bus sat there for 10 minutes and waited until it was full (with people standing in the aisle). Then it finally moved off. And then it stopped for over ten minutes next to the QF jet base waiting for taxiing aircraft, including a 787 that was going to be towed, but just sat there for five minutes not moving (but with anti-cols on). Vehicle traffic banked up and banked up some more.

So at 25-30 minutes in the bus alone, that was not really ‘seamless’.

 

[ayebee]

Did the SYD T1 to QFd transfer Thursday morning.
EK flight arrived "on time" 7.05am. We breezed through immigration, but by the time we collected bags, randomly sent to the "something to declare" line for scanning, walked the length of the arrivals hall to transfer area it was already 8.30. We had booked a 9.30 flight (which was later than flight suggested when booking) to allow some slack.
Business transfer agent told us to make sure we were on the next bus, which came about 10 minutes later. A lot of the people sitting in the waiting area missed that bus as people just arriving all seemed to queue in the business line. We got on ok, and arrived at the domestic terminal at 8.50, 15 minutes prior to nominal boarding time. If we had booked according to MCT we would likely have missed the flight.