The Qantas International Airport Experience

[Christoo]

As the title suggests or alludes to, I want to talk about how Airports really hamper the efforts of Qantas to treat their customers really well.

My belief is that being a Plat my airport experience should be like wiping my backside with silk, as in the smoothest experience possible in a necessary chore.
I will also add here that if you don't continue any further through this post after reading the previous analogy, I fully understand!

There are a number of things that Airports and Governments do though that suggests they begrudge the Frequent Flyer.
Firstly, Customs. Last week I flew out of Melbourne (My home airport) with a colleague from the US.
We had the priority boarding passes and were waved away from the priority lane in the X-Ray screening area even though it was switched on and crewed.

The customs hall was pretty full and we jumped in the express line that was queued nearly back to the glass doors and it took 35 minutes to clear customs!
I picked out a few markers in the normal queue and it was pretty much the exact same time. What is the point of the express queue?
Do you think Qantas could build a small customs hall directly for their own customers in Sydney and Melbourne? It would make sense to give their best customers a more enjoyable experience.

Another chink in the Platinum experience is luggage.
It doesn't seem to matter whether your luggage is marked: economy, business, first or queen of Egypt... It tends to just come when it comes.
My biggest complaint is oversized luggage which I often have for work. You know how frustrating it is when your bag is marked oversized but sometimes it comes out the normal baggage return and sometimes out the Oversized conveyor belt of death in the arrivals hall? It's so bizarre to have no consistency in the way things are treated.

My final gripe is the arrival customs which almost never has a priority lane open in Melbourne, I have a collection of about 20 of those express arrival cards at home.

It just is frustrating how airlines like Qantas do their best to treat their passengers well, yet the majority of the issues that make it a cough experience are out of Qantas's control. :evil:

[/Rant]

 

[Limewood]

Try USA, went through 5 ports there last month what a disaster, rude abrupt staff from airlines and officials yelling at all, move on when we clearly couldn't, then crew (Pilots) simply pushing in front of a everyone at will, so our express pass was useless. Think your experience here was not normal.

 

[richie9x]

Do you think Qantas could build a small customs hall directly for their own customers in Sydney and Melbourne? It would make sense to give their best customers a more enjoyable experience.

I haven't experienced any issues at SYD or MEL. Had the occasional wait at BNE. Maybe I don't fly at peak times.

The precleared immigration check at AKL seems to work pretty well. There is a immigration officer down in the Qantas premium check in lounge. They do the customs clearance there and give you a sticker on your BP. Then at the immigration departures they just check the sticker and your passport match then just wave you through.

 

[Christoo]

Try USA, went through 5 ports there last month what a disaster, rude abrupt staff from airlines and officials yelling at all, move on when we clearly couldn't, then crew (Pilots) simply pushing in front of a everyone at will, so our express pass was useless. Think your experience here was not normal.

I have done the LAX thing many times, it is only a slightly preferable experience to gargling with razor blades.
My longest time in the the customs queue in the US was 1hr 25mins and then we were only lucky that they opened another window right next to where we were standing.
I also never understand why the US customs officials on the inbound desks are armed, I mean how little do they trust their own security....

I just think that the Australian experience with Qantas should be better as they are the largest tenant at each of the airports. It's also in the Governments interest to make business trips to Australia fro execs as simple as possible. If they don't people will avoid you, I do everything I can to avoid transiting through LHR or LAX

 

[Christoo]

I haven't experienced any issues at SYD or MEL. Had the occasional wait at BNE. Maybe I don't fly at peak times.

The precleared immigration check at AKL seems to work pretty well. There is a immigration officer down in the Qantas premium check in lounge. They do the customs clearance there and give you a sticker on your BP. Then at the immigration departures they just check the sticker and your passport match then just wave you through.

This is exactly the sort of thing Qantas should do in Australia. I quite embarrassingly used the Qantas first checkin at Auckland about 8-10 times without noticing the immigration counter and what it was for since then... It's been GOLD JERRY!