Travellers face Sydney Airport chaos for third consecutive day
Travellers are facing a congested Sydney Airport for the third day in a row, amid a critical shortage of security staff as the Easter school holidays begin and an influx of people fly to Melbourne for the Grand Prix.
Pictures taken as early as 5am show hundreds of travellers queueing to check in at Jetstar’s domestic terminal, as Qantas and Jetstar operate at 110 per cent pre-pandemic domestic capacity for Easter.
Sydney Airport at 5am on SaturdayCredit:Twitter via Dr Darren Saunders
“@SydneyAirport arrived at terminal 2 at 4.30am for a 6am flight… security line out the door, no way I’ll make my flight. One line. One security check in line working. That’s just poor planning on your part,” wrote Angela Cook.
Later in the morning, passenger John Sutherland said he was able to get through security at Terminal 2 within 20 minutes despite the congestion.
“Very crowded but moving well,” Mr Sutherland wrote on Twitter.
“Groundhog day,” said Rob Cameron.
“Absolute madness at #SydneyAirport this morning,” said Elizabeth Evans.
On Friday, Qantas CEO Alan Joyce suggested the bottleneck was in part due to passengers who were not “match fit” after two years grounded.
“I went through the airports on Wednesday and people forget they need to take out their laptops, they have to take out their aerosols,” he said. “And a lot of the security people are new, and they’re going to be cautious as they get up to speed on [the screening process]. So that is taking longer to get through the queue.”
Late on Friday afternoon, the Qantas boss issued new comments via a senior media liaison.
“Just to be clear, I’m not ‘blaming’ passengers,” Mr Joyce said. “Of course it’s not their fault. I was asked what the factors were and why queues are so long at airports. And I explained the multiple reasons.”
Sydney Airport has encouraged passengers to arrive two hours ahead of their flight, instead of the usual one hour, for the busy school holiday period.
For Qantas, Jetstar and Virgin Australia, the Easter weekend will be the busiest since before the pandemic. The airlines will fly tens of thousands of guests over this period.
Sydney Airport said the security company Certis Security Australia was still rebuilding its workforce after a long period of minimal flights during the pandemic.
Certis, a Singaporean company, is trying to recruit multiple “aviation screening officers” at the airport.
“No security licence required,” one job advertisement says.
Successful applicants are promised 160 hours of paid training with the company sponsoring the mandatory Certificate II in Transport Security and Protection course.
A Certis spokeswoman blamed labour shortages and COVID-19 close contact rules on delays, but said the company remained committed to providing “a safe and enjoyable experience to travellers”.
“Our priority is ensuring public safety for everyone attending Sydney Airport. With visitors and travellers returning in large volumes, our focus is on building up our team to ensure smooth check-in and security operations in the most efficient manner,” the spokeswoman said.
The United Workers Union, which represents airport security staff, said the situation was “a catastrophe”.
“It’s absolutely no surprise either,” spokesman Damien Davie said. “They’ve had plenty of notice that flights would come back on board. Everyone knew it would be busy.”
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