V-Flyer

Any seasoned traveller with any advice on Sydney airport. We are looking to fly with V Australia to Auckland, departing 11.50.

Our scheduled arrival at Sydney ex Bangkok is 7:10.

Nearly five hours seems like a long enough gap (flight delays excepted).

Any advice? Date is February 2017.

Hi There,

Having arrived at a similar time into Sydney dozens of times I think you'd have to be very unlucky to have an issue.

There are a few big planes landing all around the same time so C&I can get busy, but the Aussies are an efficient bunch so you rarely have to wait that long.

On average I was usually in a taxi within 30-45 minutes after stepping off the plane.

When Virgin still flew to Sydney they gave UC pax a pink ticket which gave you fast-track through C&I...if you're business class then maybe you can get similar?

Relax and enjoy the trip!

One word to have in mind for anyone heading to oz/nz - BIOSECURITY. Very worth making sure your shoes and all outdoor gear is scrubbed spotless or brand new. Having declared we had such belongings on landing cards at both Sydney and Christchurch,NZ we were not that surprised to have our bags searched on arrival at Christchurch. All OK - we'd planned ahead. But all bags were x-rayed it seemed - woe (nasty fine + confiscation/cleaning fee) betide if they found anything not up to scratch.

Enjoy your trip. I'd be back there in a heartbeat given the opportunity!

Much obliged - very helpful. We are flying business class so will ask about the "pink ticket".

Bio security duly noted!

And from memory, they have passport reading machines that work with UK passports, which may save you time

Peter

PeterStansfield wrote:And from memory, they have passport reading machines that work with UK passports, which may save you time

Yes they do, but when we went they were failing to read somewhere around 50% of UK biometric passports - read my wife's, rejected mine (they were issued on the same day) putting me into a lengthy queue...BUT...that was two years ago