Sydney Airport ranked 'one of the worst'

[Pedota]

Sydney Airport has been ranked as one of the worst airports in Australia for the second time in a row.

A study by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) on the airports in major cities found that Brisbane and Adelaide had the best quality of service.

Sydney was ranked third last, above Darwin and Canberra.

ACCC chairman Graeme Samuel says Sydney Airport has been slipping for some time.

"There are some issues with respect to Sydney Airport as to the quality of services being provided," he said.

"Now there's a lot of detail that goes into these surveys, but I guess take a walk through Sydney Airport yourself and you'll form certain conclusions."

[genex]

Think they made a mistake.....should be one of the worst in the world...or maybe Best in the Third World. Its an embarrassment in almost every way.

[ReadMyACARS]

Didn't they come to Perth? Or maybe they started in Perth, found they couldn't get a car park and drove across the Nullabor.

[clear to land]

I have to agree with genex-with a caveat, worst in the western world. I accept that the traffic management plan is done to satisfy political convenience, but the movement cap is ludicrous, as is the 'noise sharing'. From a risk management perspective aircraft should ALWAYS be sequenced on to the most into wind runway, not with a downwind component. In the days of Stage 4 + compliant aircraft noise is no longer the issue it once was. Also the arrivals,especially early am- we get holding at less than 20 mins notice, or are told to lose 5-10mins when cruising at .85 and 10 mins before ToD. Apparantly they didn't know we were coming, even though t is at the same time every day and we have been in Aus FIR for the last 5 hrs or so. SYD is not only a joke, it is an international embarassment for all Australians. I guess thats TAATS for you, and don't even get me started on AUs inbound processing in Customs/Quarantine. :ugh:

[Static in the Attic]

As an Int'l widebody Capt with a fair amount of experience SYD is down at the bottom with PER, & Calcutta!(these 2 ATC in particular) Seriously. SYD though vies for bottom place due the 6am chaos from Holding-ILS-Immigration-quarantine. Appaling. Methinks all the management staffs there should be givena a freebie to a modern efficient airport (eg FRA / LHR) to see just how ATC / genuine large no of I/B pax should work.
But unlikely as undoubtably 'they know best'

[MTOW]

I would have to agree with the disparaging comments above about YSSY. The curfew is the modern day equivalent of the destructive union tactics that crippled Australian industry for forty years. It simply must go.

Added to Sydney airport's woes is the attitude that seems to permeate Australian ATC, who carry on as if THEY are the end user, rather than the service provider.

Every time I fly into Australia, I'm reminded of the story of the retiring United pilot who told Sydney ATC that they were the second best ATC in the world.

Everyone's heard the punch line, so I won't repeat it here.

[meguro]

I travel as a pax into Sydney frequently and it is appalingly bad. I suspect that the International facility is not designed to handle the current passenger volume. I have arrived in YSSY on a Friday morning and it is pure third world stuff. I have frequently visited Thailand, China, Japan, Germany, Holland, Indonesia and the United States. ALL are better than Sydney without exception.
One day out bound, the immigation line went out into the terminal, between the checkin counters to the front door on the terminal, unbelievable!

[Aus ATC]

Quote from MTOW:

"Added to Sydney airport's woes is the attitude that seems to permeate Australian ATC, who carry on as if THEY are the end user, rather than the service provider."

Probably coming from a pilot who thinks he is the only aircraft in the sky!!

I can assure you, it gives us no pleasure to hold, vector, or stuff you around - just makes our job harder. When was the last time you heard "For controller amusement hold at BOREE"
Aus ATC

[maui]

Have to agree with all the adverse comments about SYD.

$13.20 to travel a kilometer on a scungy NSW suburban train running between terminals. A disgrace. But then if you flog your assets off to the likes of Macbank, what can you expect. Dobbed them in to the ACCC and they couldn't give a ratz.

However the ultimate prize for disgraceful would have to go to that other thirdworld facility called JFK. That makes SYD appear to be Nirvana. How the "Leaders of The World " can tolerate such a screwed up service is beyond comprehension.

Maui

[Twitter n Bisted]

Have to agree with many of the posters on this thread.
As a user of many other international airports (pax)
SYD or Fortress Australia as its commonly known is appalling from a PAX point of view. And I am sure it is dreaded by many a business passenger.

Emigration que in the early AM are so long the people are standing in the duty free shop.

The fact that PAX forced to walk through a shop to get to emigration is beyond explanation :ugh:

The customs bottle neck is another 45 mins to an hour of your time only to be confronted with another rage inciting(documented) Taxi que when you finally make it outside.
Mac Bank have made it absolutely impossible for anyone to pick up an arrived PAX as SYD SIT without using their car park or incurring a $170 fine.

Some legislation or common sense needs to be applied to stem this monopoly from the current miss treatment of international tourists and business people entering SYD as they have no choice of service provider. I use the word service very loosely.

End of rant

[Capt Wally]

what SYD needs is a fool running around wearing a backpack on the tarmac ! Seen just that at Heathrow tonight on the TV. I've always said in other threads that the weekest link in an airport security system is the soft wired perimeter fenceline, any fool can cut thru that stuff & be inside in minutes .
ATC do a great job considering their bosses are children trying to see who has the biggest stick !

Love syd airport, when I fly OVER it going elsewhere !



CW

[busdriver007]

I gotta agree with the title. You fly from any of the major hubs in Asia and these airports beat the pants off Sydney. Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, KL, etc. all these airports are 10 times better than this place. Combine the absolute #*%& fight with some overzealous customs people with overbearing rules from a bygone era and you have a great welcome mat for Australia. How the hell this airport is going to handle 4 to 6 A380s at one time in a couple of years time. Yet when you check out the Skytrax website Sydney rates 4 out 5 in the rankings. Who the hell is Skytrax anyway? Macbank must pay them well just as someone at Qantas pays them well to rate Jetstar the best in the world.:confused:
http://www.airlinequality.com/Airports/Airport_forum/syd.htm

[BurglarsDog]

Used Syd outbound a few weeks back. Dont buy the train ticket for the Int terminal from the machine. Its about $13.50 - yet only $5 or so from the customer service window! . Mid afternoon dep on a Thu in Feb saw no Q,s anywhere.- No problems. Probably choose to return via Bris in July though as Im kinda fond of that Beagle they have sniffing around!
Agree with the traffic management though. Inbound on an earlier flight (Dec) we appeared to do some high level holding. Wondered why as we had been over Oz quite some time - about 4 + hours since Port Headland or thereabouts. I think a reduction of about M 0.02 coasting in would have saved about 80 track miles or 10 + mins in the hold.

DogGone:)

[TurboOtter]

They/re not the worst, they're the second best....
And in first postion. The rest of the world :E

In all fairness I feel that ATC are doing a stand up job, it's just the bullsh!t they have to deal with from the local tree huggers. I assume.
As Aus ATC, they're not doing it for fun, HOWEVER......
Why do they give the ol loose 5 minutes 10 minutes prior to TOD?? Now that to me is just obvious they stuffed up.

[Sand Man]

I have to agree with the comment made earlier about the lack of co-ordination between ATC agencies approaching SYD. The number of times I have been told to loose 3min 10min before ToD and then fly 230kts, only to be told by the next controller to maintain high speed for as long as possible and then held up at 6000’ until abeam the airfield only to be given a close pattern behind a Dash 8 indicates to me that it is not just a mistake on the day but something seriously wrong with the whole arrival procedure.
Once on the ground it does not get any better. Immigration is just a joke. There are lines for Aircrew but most of the time the TV screen is broken and other passengers join the line. There is no one policing this and if you jump ahead of the passengers they get upset and this attracts attention from the immigration officers and next thing you know you are targeted as a trouble maker.
Then there is the problem of getting to and from the airport itself. As mentioned before you either pay a very high price to have the privilege of catching public transport or pay the extremely high parking fee.
From what I have heard about the renovation plans for the Int’l terminal it is just going to get worse. It is time the Government steps in and fixes the situation, after all it is the first and last impression most visitor have of Syd and Aust.

[Static in the Attic]

Eclan,
The post is about YSSY in general, granted started off about customers, but due a pilots forum (!) has now encompassed our side of things.
Yes LHR is shabby, as you say ATC outstanding, but from chocks to exiting the airport (via crew bus meeting us on stand) it can be as little as 30 mins. Lately I queued for an hr (as op crew) simply in YSSY quarantine, all said we were about 1:30 cx - getting out of the place.
As a pax LHR is depressing due its age, but again I can be out a whole lot quicker than SYD.
SYD ATC undoubtably under too many constraints, but when A/C are forced to divert due RVR's insuff 34 & yet workable 16 (early am fog) you gotta wonder. On that occasion seemingly because not being able to get their act together in time before a/f closed completely.

[SM4 Pirate]

Agree with the traffic management though. Inbound on an earlier flight (Dec) we appeared to do some high level holding. Wondered why as we had been over Oz quite some time - about 4 + hours since Port Headland or thereabouts. I think a reduction of about M 0.02 coasting in would have saved about 80 track miles or 10 + mins in the hold. So how did you know you weren't cruising at M.05 slower from 2 hours out and still had to hold?

LTOP is too blame for 'inefficiencies' not ATC.

Don't get me started on staffing of FLOW and configuring MAESTRO before the morning push starts. The push actually starts before the traffic gets to 45NM Sydney.

Most internationals that arrive at YSSY before 7am "require" the long runway, ie not 34R or 16L. Thus the airport appears to be quite inefficient, but runway 34L/16R is running at full capacity. No body complains when it's 07/25 only yet effectively the same landing rates are available on parallels because of the traffic mix.

ATC comply with LTOP, or we get a nice holiday. In the same way that pilot would if disregarding SOPs and getting caught out.

ALOFT - Is being used in Sydney (long range Flow); this runs about 4am or so; works out the landing times of the sequence inbound through to about 7am; when LTOP changes to peak mode.

The allocation of ALOFT slots is about informing the crews about what they are in for; often it's a 10 minute reduction needed and at other times it nothing or more. Some crews choose to slow down, others motor in hoping their slot will change, but it won't.

As for the speed-up slow down flow; well some-days you're the statue and other days the pigeon. FLOW is a black art, picking a winner is easy unless the pilot of either doesn't do what you thought they would do.

Maximum speed, Cancel Speed Restrictions, Profile Speed, 280K, 270K and 250K are generally the tools used by enroute; it's amazing to see the differences in ground speed that these produce when 'matched' with different aircraft, sometimes same type, same company same speed gives you very large differences.

Asymmetric flow, or flow from different directions with different track miles is very difficult science to get right.

MAESTRO flows gaps of precise seconds, yet ATC will enroute will use whole minutes for system simplification. So Maestro will have you landing at 0202UTC+43 seconds; which converts back to a feeder fix (for arguments sake) of 0148UTC+33. This displays on their screen as between 0148 and 0149; they will flow you to the feeder fix at either 48 or 49, either way there is work to do to fix the flow after you cross the Feeder Fix, you're either late or early and that's assuming the system is working beautifully.

As for my faith in MAESTRO, well it's only using the information available, it doesn't cater well for all the different approach permutations, doesn't have 'real' winds to use except for close to the runway based on what the FLOW sets.

However having seen years of general holding then better sequencing identification / slot allocation MEASTRO is far more efficient everywhere in sharing information, not sure it has increased the landing rate at all though; but with the sharing of information it must have led to fuel burn efficiencies.

There is an article or two on this blog about FLOW http://everyminutecountsblog.*************/2007_08_01_archive.html

The SID/STAR design is incredibly complex and worth it's own topic.

As for Sydney Airport, topic of the thread. I've always been impressed by the cosmetic design, ie it looks good. But it's not exactly user friendly and hope you never get caught in a baggage/customs/immigration queue. And getting from Domestic to International and back is amongst the worst I have experienced anywhere in the world.

[BurglarsDog]

SM4

Fair points

Well made

Will give Brissy a go this cycle.

DogGone;)

[Sunfish]

Brisbane suffers from international and domestic terminals being connected by a domestic train that runs every 20 minutes - enough to completely destroy your connections

Sydney is merely a typical fine screen money sieve. I had the dubious pleasure of visiting Sydeny a month ago and discovered in the railway station that there was no tunnel to the VB terminal - at least on Sunday. I had to drag my gear into the Qantas terminal, then ask someone where the VB terminal was. Nice one Qantas!

And of course MacBank is now going to buy NSW's electricity assets and then screw you some more...

[Walrus 7]

The name "Melbourne" is conspicuously absent from this conversation. Does no-one have an opinion of how it rates compared to SY and the others?

Walrus

[Duff Man]

Stop the presses! Not only are Sydney ATC and Airport the worst ... but now the taxis are claimig the gong. Hooray! http://www.news.com.au/business/story/0,23636,23377780-462,00.html scroll to the end and you get this "Melbourne had the second-worst taxis, followed by Canberra".

Psssssssst.... any inflection on the R/T of attitude doesn't help your case flying the crowded skies.

[mention1]

To catch the train from my place to the city return is $6.40 and to the airport return is $30.00 - even though it a shorter distance!

I would love to catch the train to work, you know, save the trees and all; but its just too damn expensive :{

[plainmaker]

Sunfish, were you drunk?

Come out of the railway station and turn left - a short 20 metre walk. VB terminal is T2 and right in your face!! And there is even a lift to the VB terminal!! :rolleyes:

I know that certain passengers never get the opportunity to turn left when entering 2L, so perhaps old habits die hard.

No mention on any website (CityRail or Airport) of any closure in the last couple of months.


Plainmaker

[flightfocus]

Im with ReadMyACARS - PERTH is horrid.

Run by a bunch of money grabbing MacBank wannabes, they have become the parking specialists of Perth. Put down more asphalt than the Govt.....

I think in general Oz airports are woeful. With the exception perhaps of the new Adelaide Terminal and the QF Domestic in Syd they belong in a museum. :{

With big bucks spent on infrastructure in Hong Kong, KL, Singapore and many other Asian neighbours we have been left far behind.

Interesting observation about JFK in there as well. Me thinks it is a side effect of the privatization culture that Howard et al thrust upon us. Business don't think of the customer - they think of the share holders (after thinking of bonuses of course)