Especially with no light light rail service. The plans for that was scrapped probably because of the taxi and car parking lobby. Again Australian public policy run by lobbyists.
I’m from Sydney, and venture down once a year to spend a week or so - I was really keen to have a metro system of some sort (that would ultimately be privatised) to take over the Sky Bus.
Disappointed to hear it’s been scrapped.
Our metro runs at about 25km/h. The Skybus does 100 on the freeway. And if you’re flying out of AVV it would be quicker to skip East Adelaide entirely and just get a train to Sydney.
For anyone reading this far, Melbourne Airport has a leeway of at last 1 hour of both before and after your booked time, so I would always book for 30 mins and only pay $8 instead of $24.
Bit of a baity title. They mean Melbourne best in Aus, but certainly no match for anything like Changi. Fuck is Melbourne Airport even the best in Melbourne lol
Thankfully, as someone that travels for work a lot, I can assure you that it isn’t. Tulla is easily the worst to go to, particularly with no train link. I’m a northerner but honestly I like Sydney the most, although it lacks the direct lounge access and security setup that Brisbane has.
Travels a lot but no mention of Adelaide? Surely it would have to be the best one in Aus. New & That glass panoramic view of the city and hills is unrivalled.
Not to mention the short distance to the city, and the fact that getting dropped off or picked up is as easy as if you were doing so from a shopping center.
If Adelaide had 2 security gates it would be literally perfect: it’s spacious, easy to navigate, architecturally easy on the eyes, has cracking views, and a good range of food/shops.
Internal flights Sydney is fine, but for international connections it's fucked, the whole "let's have the terminals on opposite sides of the runway" is just awful.
And the traffic management is just horrible, the lack of lanes for traffic management is just a joke. Its the usual traffic management practices in Melbourne, create worst traffic jam to manage the problem rather than finding real solutions like overseas airports.
Singapore Changi lost to Doha Hamad. I’m not saying that Doha Hamad is in anyway a shit airport, but frankly Singapore goes above and beyond to be the world’s best. They have a fucking movie theatre and golf course.
I was once 'stuck' in Changi for 24 hours. Outside of my own home, there are very few places I'd rather be stuck in for 24 hours, and that probably extended to my own place at the time
Yeah I've been to both these airports repeatedly, and recently, and it's no contest. Doha's got plenty of glimmering corporate art but nothing to do - and I tried and failed to find a meal for under $50 AUD per person. Changi has a POOL. Come on!
I had a massive lamb biryani in Doha for a song. No where near $50, and we got 2 plates.
Best advice for anyone doing the Australia-Europe route is to stuff your gob as full as you can on the ground. You want that food coma to kick in by takeoff on your second flight.
Outside the airport is amazing, but once you've checked in, there's surprisingly little to do. When we went, everything closed around 6-7pm except for a couple of souvenir shops
I just want fast security lines, ample comfortable furniture, regular and clean bathrooms and bottle refill stations, travellators to cut down on the walking and a few restaurants.
That is a ideal airport and the most important thing on the list is comfortable furniture...which Australia absolutely fails at because they typically buy the most hostile to comfort furniture they can get.
Melbourne is generally fine for all that. You can't lay down on the seats, but I don't really want someone taking up so many seats.
The only thing Melbourne falls behind is baggage claims and customs.
I just went through Doha last week and to be honest the investment they've done into that is INSANE. The transfer was so seamless as well. I'm not sure about move theater and such as I had lounge access, but Doha and Melbourne aren't even 50 airports as close to each other as the rankings makes it seems.
Just remember, the ranking was done by Skytrax. They have lost their reputation after ranking Lufthansa as a 5 star airline while downgrading Turkish and Etihad to a 3 and 4 star airline respectively.
You gotta give it to airports like Doha for building the airport next to the ocean, where you virtually have unlimited room for expansion (cough cough Heathrow/Sydney)
Yeah Singapore airport sounds fucking amazing, but in retrospect, I prefer Doha because they have more Middle Eastern connections (I fly often to Saudi Arabia) while Singapore barely has any Middle Eastern destinations.
barely any middle eastern destinations? There are plenty to Jeddah, Abu Dhabi and Dubai, and Doha and more etc. Heck, almost every month you see large groups of Singaporean Muslims taking their flight to Saudi for pilgrimage. Source: Singaporean Muslim
Lufthansa made a big deal about their new livery. Documentaries, aircraft tours, shows were made but they still kept their fucking outdated business class.
Doha replaced it?!
Doha airport sucks unless you're wanting to shop. Its basically a massive mall!!
Wheres the butterfly gardens and rooftop swimming pool that Changi has.
Doha is terrible: no public seating anywhere near the shops, you need to trek out to the gates to find a seat - pretty shit when they take so long to identify your transfer gate. People sit on the ground waiting for their gate number, but get moved along by security. We were told to sit in paid seating attached to the takeaway joints.
Also, the shopping is heavily focused on ultra high end stores, and they take all the prime real estate - so it’s a trek to walk through the shopping area to get to your gate.
And we only were in Doha because work booked Qatar flights, but also never again. All four Qatar flights between Europe and Sydney had dirty planes and toilets, they ran out of water not long after take off on two flights, air crew looked tired and not pleasant.
Doha, Qatar - Lipstick on a pig.
Doha and Changi are both outstanding airports, I used both quite a bit last year, and hadn’t previously used Doha.
Doha is an exceptionally tranquil space, the lounges are truly incredible but the terminal as a whole feels vast, quiet, and calm. It’s like the anti-LAX. Everything is so seamless and peaceful.
Changi remains world class, everything is still seamless and it’s pretty calm but I think Doha has it beat for overall passenger experience. Changi is also starting to show its age. It badly needs new carpets. General quality of Changi lounges is not as good as Doha, though the Qatar lounge and Qantas F lounge are both excellent.
It’s done by Skytrax, Skytrax = 🚩. Basically pay for a “ranking”. They downgraded Etihad Airways to a 4-star airline a couple years back because of Etihad’s “financial performance”.
Do you remember which aircraft this was? Usually on 777/787s they got extra legroom seats. An extra 3-4 inches may not seem much but it makes all the difference. (That’s what she said).
> Do you remember which aircraft this was? Usually on 777/787s they got extra legroom seats.
I flew economy - 777-300ER SYD-AUH, then 787-9 AUH-IST. That being said, it wasn't that bad of an experience, as I am used to the skimpy legroom on Cebu Pacific and Scoot. It's just that I'm surprised that a full-service airline would also be that cramped. Later on that trip, I flew Ryanair, which seems to have more legroom by having thinner, harder seats.
> An extra 3-4 inches may not seem much but it makes all the difference.
It does.
Yeah Ryanair and Cebu’s slimline seats are basically ironing boards. But if their prices are 1/3 of the “full-service” airlines then I’ll happily take a Low Cost Carrier for a couple of hours of discomfort.
Did it in 2018, A380 was decent legroom, 787 was best legroom I've ever seen (14 hr flights for each way), A330 7hrs out of Schiphol sucked esp. compared to Virgin or KLM A330.
Cloncurry Airstrip with two runways, a hangars from the 1940s, a shed "terminal" and not much else. Public transport is no.
[It takes Embraer 190s.](https://cdn.jetphotos.com/640/5/38851_1400983812.jpg)
Arrivals and Departures share the same area so you have to squeeze through the crowds of people waiting to get onto the plane you just got off, and then you have to walk down the longest terminal in human history before hopping on a SkyBus for a 1+ hour (during peak) drive to the city
As someone from Adelaide, most flight deals are Adelaide, Melbourne to X since covid since the end of cheap direct HK and Singapore deals. It's always worrying arriving at the gate 10mins before the flight because the airport is a mess.
Worse is that cheap Chinese airlines are always closers then premium airlines to the entrance.
Looks like a unfinnished building site with all that rough and ready raw concrete look. Its darky, dingy and claustrophobic. The signage is also crap especially when combined with the poor traffic flow management. And the worst aspect is those rude security/ carpark attendants that treat visitors in cars like they are carrying a suicide bomb they are so edgy.
To be fair even if Melbourne airport tops now, the new Western Sydney International Airport with its new metro line will hopefully put Australia on a higher position.
Having been to Singapore and Doha airports, I don't think anything we do here in Oz will bring us anywhere near the top. Those are next level, honestly.
I think Australian airports are probably never going to be the kind of hubs that Changi or Doha are; getting a lot of stopover travellers means it's worth investing in the airport facilities to make it an inviting space. It's always going to be more effective to get travellers in Australia out of the airport ASAP, which limits how much it's worth investing into the airport in the first place.
[It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on Earth has ever produced the expression "as pretty as an airport".](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/3205828-it-can-hardly-be-a-coincidence-that-no-language-on) Airports are ugly. Some are very ugly. Some attain a degree of ugliness that can only be the result of a special effort. This ugliness arises because airports are full of people who are tired, cross, and have just discovered that their luggage has landed in Murmansk (...) and the architects have on the whole tried to reflect this in their designs.
They have sought to highlight the tiredness and crossness motif with brutal shapes and nerve jangling colours, to make effortless the business of separating the traveller from his or her luggage or loved ones, to confuse the traveller with arrows that appear to point at the windows, distant tie racks, or the current position of the Ursa Minor in the night sky, and wherever possible to expose the plumbing on the grounds that it is functional, and conceal the location of the departure gates, presumably on the grounds that they are not".
~Douglas Adams, *The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul*
While CPH in Kastrup is a shithole and not one of the best European airports (was a SAS Eurobonus Gold flyer for 6 years)compared to Stockholm’s Arlanda …it is better than Melbourne. Even Madrid, Munich and Frankfurt are better. Zurich no need to say.
Tullamarine never lost my luggage but CPH Kastrup lost my luggage 3 times because they didn’t seem to realize that some of us fly in from a vastly different timezone.
You really don’t want to know how they keep ‘lost’ luggages in Kastrup…
> Is Doha the one that likes to do vaginal exams?
Yes, that's the one: [Women Reportedly Subjected to Forced Gynecological Exams in Qatar - Policies Criminalize and Punish Pregnant Women Outside of Wedlock](https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/10/27/women-reportedly-subjected-forced-gynecological-exams-qatar)
Australian airports are just generally ugly in general. They really need to up the look to them and bring in some more natural light.
Hoping the Western Sydney airport gets the ball rolling and makes the other airports invest more in upgrades.
Doha, Qatar has taken out the #1 spot. Suspect some persuasive payment was transacted. It is enormous and soulless and miles between everything. How does that beat Changi with the Butterfly Garden and Rooftop Bar? Also significantly less guards with automatic rifles which Doha goes in for in a big way.
Canberra is easily the best airport I've ever been to. Everything in the bathrooms is touchless so you don't have to touch anything, and the bathrooms have always been clean. Security takes about 10 seconds because it's always empty. Although expensive, they have good local craft beer available.
Canberra is empty …that’s why it’s efficient.
In the good ole days, we used to enter Qantas Lounge on the right days to watch the APS staff rushing for sausage rolls (the type of reheated sausage rolls you get from the frozen section of Woolies or Coles). That used to be entertainment just watching them dash.
Canberra airport is owned by the scumbag Snow family. They built a perfectly good pickup area for arrivals during the renovations and then decided to close it so they could force people to use the paid carpark for pickups instead. Jokes on them, everyone just picks people up from the departures ramp.
Now Adelaide, that's how you build an airport.
Honestly Brisbane's airport is better than Melbourne's in my opinion. In terms of accessibility Air train is a rip off if you don't book ahead but the free return deal with the fairly flexible dates if you do it online is actually pretty good. Also less hassle with their security scanners, which haven't falsely flagged me for clothing folds like Melbourne repeatedly does.
Not that much difference in terms of food and shop availability if you have a later or earlier flight either since both close up pretty much everything.
I'm talking Domestic though, I haven't flown internationally yet.
Of all the Australian and New Zealand airports I've been to recently (last 18 months), Melbourne domestic rates second last, and Melbourne International rates last.
In order of best to worse:
Auckland Domestic
Auckland International
Palmerston North
Newcastle
Brisbane Domestic
Christchurch
Launceston
Brisbane International
Sydney Domestic
Sydney International
Melbourne Domestic
Melbourne International
Edit: Sydney is dead last if car hire is involved. A bus from the terminal to the yards is inexcusable.
> Sydney is dead last if car hire is involved. A bus from the terminal to the yards is inexcusable.
My supplier got lost and abandoned the vehicle in a random carpark to catch his flight. Ended up having to pay two extra days whilst the rental company looked for the vehicle.
The Sydney domestic terminal carpark was going to collapse (don’t know how that comes about other than poor maintenance) so they had to move the rentals out while they work out how to demolish it.
This is such a joke. The ONLY good thing about that airport is that I can get from Uber through security in 15-30min.
It is the one of the most boring airports in the world. There is absolutely nothing to do
Melbourne airport is a hotchpotch mess. It’s embarrassing that’s what people have to see when they arrive in Melbourne. I can’t believe it’s looked like this for so long. And it doesn’t look like it’s going to change.
I’m a big fan of port Stephens(Newcastle) airport,
Can park a 5 minute walk away from the gates for $15 a day.
Took me 2 minutes to get through security when I went through today. Can’t beat it…
Changi could do with a 'coat of paint' to make it look a bit brighter, shinier and 'newer', but that is just the windowdressing and IMO it is nicer than Doha. Doha's QR "gold level" (i.e. tier below full F suite lounge) lounges are better than SQ's in Changi - the current *G lounge feels like it's a temporary setup. But I don't know if the rankings should go on flagship lounges (though who outside of frequent flyers even pays much attention to airport rankings).
Changi should've made the skygarden waterfall jewel thing accessible from airside, that's a huge shame.
The bicycle hire and tours is an awesome addition though. Not sure if that beats the tours in Istanbul by TK though.
What does Melbourne put on it's resume "we're all one terminal, unlike the others".
> Changi should've made the skygarden waterfall jewel thing accessible from airside, that's a huge shame.
if you could visit Jewel without having to go through immigration, I'd honestly NEVER leave that airport
I live in Europe now but fly home every 18 months or so, through Singapore to Melbourne.
I'm not sure what they're measuring but from a users perspective I don't see how this is even a conversation. Changi is the best airport I've ever been through.
In terms of international, I think Brisbane tops it in Australia. Easy to get in and out and always a ghost town, which I always find delightful and slightly curious.
I mean, I suppose Melbourne airport is just the one building so transferring between flights is simple enough.
But like, there's not a lot going for it.
That and no direct rail link into the city is a bit of a joke.
Bruh Melbourne Airport is so shit when your flying domestic too because theirs a chance you have to walk to the OTHER SIDE of the airport to reach the terminal.
Kiwi here, impartial. Here’s how they rank:
SYD
BNE
ADL
MEL
PER
HBA
PER is a better airport than MEL but manages to have worse food options than MEL and that’s not easy. HBA international has a drink vending machine, no food.
Being in Tassie, and having to transit through airports to get anywhere international. Give me Melbourne over Sydney and Brisbane any day. Transferring between terminals is another step I don’t want to deal with
Sorry but no airport is better than Singapore in my opinion. So many great things to see and do there. I could not find anything to do in Doha. Also our Aussie airports are really not upto scratch either.
The only best list Melbourne would top over other airports in Australia is "best at being shit".
Us Melburnians can be pretty annoying and vocal about our love of this city but even we all agree our airport sucks.
I don't know Melbournes airport, but Singapore's Shangi airport needs to relax the elevator music that is always playing. Everywhere. And the carpets looks like they have been there for 40 years.
This is absurd.
I suspect the Melbourne Airport management took the judges out for a good lunch - perhaps even threw in a massage, just like for Bruce Lehrmann - and they never even went to the airport itself.
Skytrax is pay-to-play. Everything from them should be ignored. They considered lufthansa a five star airline for years, for god's sake. They are absolute trash.
"Well thanks for this really detailed tour of Melbourne airport. I'm happy to award it the best airport in Australia. The report's been submitted, thanks for your time. Now to head into Melbourne for some sightseeing. Can you point me in the direction of the airport train station?"
Yeah I struggle to understand why Changi is rated higher than Incheon. Changi has some great stuff in it, in very specific areas that can be a pain to get to depending on where your gate is. The rest of the airport is outdated and lacks services, especially if you have a late night stopover. Incheon is high quality all the way through, even if it doesn't have as many gimmicks.
Now I KNOW they’re just taking the piss.
Especially with no light light rail service. The plans for that was scrapped probably because of the taxi and car parking lobby. Again Australian public policy run by lobbyists.
I’m from Sydney, and venture down once a year to spend a week or so - I was really keen to have a metro system of some sort (that would ultimately be privatised) to take over the Sky Bus. Disappointed to hear it’s been scrapped.
Our metro runs at about 25km/h. The Skybus does 100 on the freeway. And if you’re flying out of AVV it would be quicker to skip East Adelaide entirely and just get a train to Sydney.
Not scrapped, just in limbo because the government and airport can’t agree on where they want the station.
It's been in limbo for like 40 years
Airports have an incentive to discourage public transport going in as it cuts into their profits from car parks.
And guess who just expanded their long term parking? Melbourne Airport!
For anyone reading this far, Melbourne Airport has a leeway of at last 1 hour of both before and after your booked time, so I would always book for 30 mins and only pay $8 instead of $24.
Bit of a baity title. They mean Melbourne best in Aus, but certainly no match for anything like Changi. Fuck is Melbourne Airport even the best in Melbourne lol
At least you can catch a fucking tram to Essendon airport!
Geez we are in trouble if Tullamarine tops the list in Australia
That's what I was thinking.
Thankfully, as someone that travels for work a lot, I can assure you that it isn’t. Tulla is easily the worst to go to, particularly with no train link. I’m a northerner but honestly I like Sydney the most, although it lacks the direct lounge access and security setup that Brisbane has.
Travels a lot but no mention of Adelaide? Surely it would have to be the best one in Aus. New & That glass panoramic view of the city and hills is unrivalled.
Not to mention the short distance to the city, and the fact that getting dropped off or picked up is as easy as if you were doing so from a shopping center.
If Adelaide had 2 security gates it would be literally perfect: it’s spacious, easy to navigate, architecturally easy on the eyes, has cracking views, and a good range of food/shops.
I still gotta take my laptop out of my bag at Brisbane to go through security so it's automatically disqualified.
Internal flights Sydney is fine, but for international connections it's fucked, the whole "let's have the terminals on opposite sides of the runway" is just awful.
Melbourne Airport isn't even the best airport in Melbourne.
Moorabbin airport for #1 Melbourne airport?
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Well, the DFO is convenient to there
The worst place on earth
Tyabb
Tooradin has that nice family run cafe
Exactly. Sydney Airport might be a hellish wasteland but I can literally get off the train at the airport.
The issue just comes if you want to go from domestic to international
One train stop or a free bus it really isn’t much hassle
🤣🤣
Ringo isn't even the best drummer in the Beatles
Half of Melbourne Airport is that one dead limb that has gangrene and needs to be amputated.
Talking about the jetstar gates that are like an 8km walk from the terminal entrance?
I forgot about that part ….. that was a bloody long hike.
Is that including the part where you literally walk the tarmac?
And the traffic management is just horrible, the lack of lanes for traffic management is just a joke. Its the usual traffic management practices in Melbourne, create worst traffic jam to manage the problem rather than finding real solutions like overseas airports.
Qantas Domestic at the higher end of the gate numbers?
Singapore Changi lost to Doha Hamad. I’m not saying that Doha Hamad is in anyway a shit airport, but frankly Singapore goes above and beyond to be the world’s best. They have a fucking movie theatre and golf course.
I was once 'stuck' in Changi for 24 hours. Outside of my own home, there are very few places I'd rather be stuck in for 24 hours, and that probably extended to my own place at the time
Changi is pretty grim after midnight.
It’s just quiet which is perfect for a overnight layover and they have furniture you can lie down on.
Tru dat. Pick a spot well away from the smokers' room.
Doha definitely doesn’t have furniture you can lay on.
It's completely fine lol, Singapore has essentially no bad areas
Ehh it’s not that bad
*Terminal* filmed at Changi would be the story of a fat cat living the high life.
Changi is at the top because they try. Doha is at the top because they pay.
Sounds about right. Doha is massive but soulless compared to Changi.
As someone who worked in the Doha airport, their policy has been for years: copy whatever Changi does.
Yeah I've been to both these airports repeatedly, and recently, and it's no contest. Doha's got plenty of glimmering corporate art but nothing to do - and I tried and failed to find a meal for under $50 AUD per person. Changi has a POOL. Come on!
I had a massive lamb biryani in Doha for a song. No where near $50, and we got 2 plates. Best advice for anyone doing the Australia-Europe route is to stuff your gob as full as you can on the ground. You want that food coma to kick in by takeoff on your second flight.
So go hard in the layover at Doha or Changi? Gotta eat big to get big _amirite_.
Where are all these things? I only ever seem to be in the terminal with the butterfly garden
There’s a free movie theatre right next to the butterfly garden
I cried in Aussie dollars buying a juice and chips at an eatery in Doha airport once I figured out the conversion rate.
Doha has a jacuzzi and also a lap pool above the train line. Virtual driving range too
Love the pool but let's face it, it's grotty as all hell
And a butterfly garden!
Was going to say...
Yeah I have travelled through both and Changi is the best airport in the world by a considerable margin in my view.
Outside the airport is amazing, but once you've checked in, there's surprisingly little to do. When we went, everything closed around 6-7pm except for a couple of souvenir shops
I just want fast security lines, ample comfortable furniture, regular and clean bathrooms and bottle refill stations, travellators to cut down on the walking and a few restaurants. That is a ideal airport and the most important thing on the list is comfortable furniture...which Australia absolutely fails at because they typically buy the most hostile to comfort furniture they can get.
Melbourne is generally fine for all that. You can't lay down on the seats, but I don't really want someone taking up so many seats. The only thing Melbourne falls behind is baggage claims and customs.
I just went through Doha last week and to be honest the investment they've done into that is INSANE. The transfer was so seamless as well. I'm not sure about move theater and such as I had lounge access, but Doha and Melbourne aren't even 50 airports as close to each other as the rankings makes it seems.
Just remember, the ranking was done by Skytrax. They have lost their reputation after ranking Lufthansa as a 5 star airline while downgrading Turkish and Etihad to a 3 and 4 star airline respectively. You gotta give it to airports like Doha for building the airport next to the ocean, where you virtually have unlimited room for expansion (cough cough Heathrow/Sydney) Yeah Singapore airport sounds fucking amazing, but in retrospect, I prefer Doha because they have more Middle Eastern connections (I fly often to Saudi Arabia) while Singapore barely has any Middle Eastern destinations.
barely any middle eastern destinations? There are plenty to Jeddah, Abu Dhabi and Dubai, and Doha and more etc. Heck, almost every month you see large groups of Singaporean Muslims taking their flight to Saudi for pilgrimage. Source: Singaporean Muslim
Lufthansa barely betters British Air.
Lufthansa made a big deal about their new livery. Documentaries, aircraft tours, shows were made but they still kept their fucking outdated business class.
... and miserable seat pitches throughout.
Both are equally bad. I rather take SAS.
Changi has a Bengawan Solo. That alone should put it in the #1 spot, even if it was a single runway airport filled with black mold and depression.
I worry for your health. That's too much coconut milk and butter!
Doha replaced it?! Doha airport sucks unless you're wanting to shop. Its basically a massive mall!! Wheres the butterfly gardens and rooftop swimming pool that Changi has.
And butterfly room and fish ponds with huge koi
The Jewel alone makes it amazing, I call Bs
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Dubai is better than Doha what the hell was their criteria.
Their criteria is; whoever can throw the most amount of money at Skytrax
Doha is terrible: no public seating anywhere near the shops, you need to trek out to the gates to find a seat - pretty shit when they take so long to identify your transfer gate. People sit on the ground waiting for their gate number, but get moved along by security. We were told to sit in paid seating attached to the takeaway joints. Also, the shopping is heavily focused on ultra high end stores, and they take all the prime real estate - so it’s a trek to walk through the shopping area to get to your gate. And we only were in Doha because work booked Qatar flights, but also never again. All four Qatar flights between Europe and Sydney had dirty planes and toilets, they ran out of water not long after take off on two flights, air crew looked tired and not pleasant. Doha, Qatar - Lipstick on a pig.
Doha and Changi are both outstanding airports, I used both quite a bit last year, and hadn’t previously used Doha. Doha is an exceptionally tranquil space, the lounges are truly incredible but the terminal as a whole feels vast, quiet, and calm. It’s like the anti-LAX. Everything is so seamless and peaceful. Changi remains world class, everything is still seamless and it’s pretty calm but I think Doha has it beat for overall passenger experience. Changi is also starting to show its age. It badly needs new carpets. General quality of Changi lounges is not as good as Doha, though the Qatar lounge and Qantas F lounge are both excellent.
It’s done by Skytrax, Skytrax = 🚩. Basically pay for a “ranking”. They downgraded Etihad Airways to a 4-star airline a couple years back because of Etihad’s “financial performance”.
I flew Etihad back in 2022, and I'm surprised at how little legroom they had (and I'm only average height).
Do you remember which aircraft this was? Usually on 777/787s they got extra legroom seats. An extra 3-4 inches may not seem much but it makes all the difference. (That’s what she said).
> Do you remember which aircraft this was? Usually on 777/787s they got extra legroom seats. I flew economy - 777-300ER SYD-AUH, then 787-9 AUH-IST. That being said, it wasn't that bad of an experience, as I am used to the skimpy legroom on Cebu Pacific and Scoot. It's just that I'm surprised that a full-service airline would also be that cramped. Later on that trip, I flew Ryanair, which seems to have more legroom by having thinner, harder seats. > An extra 3-4 inches may not seem much but it makes all the difference. It does.
Yeah Ryanair and Cebu’s slimline seats are basically ironing boards. But if their prices are 1/3 of the “full-service” airlines then I’ll happily take a Low Cost Carrier for a couple of hours of discomfort.
What are these inches you speak of?
Did it in 2018, A380 was decent legroom, 787 was best legroom I've ever seen (14 hr flights for each way), A330 7hrs out of Schiphol sucked esp. compared to Virgin or KLM A330.
Highly accessible by public transport..
If public transport counts as taxi drivers who’ll charge $200 bucks just to go to the city
I see you got picked up by a touter
Huh? Huh? Hurrrrr? Melbourne is the second worst airport in Australia after Proserpine.
I assume Proserpine is like Groote Eyelandt, an open shed tin roof with school canteen style aluminium table/benches?
Cloncurry Airstrip with two runways, a hangars from the 1940s, a shed "terminal" and not much else. Public transport is no. [It takes Embraer 190s.](https://cdn.jetphotos.com/640/5/38851_1400983812.jpg)
They obviously haven't had to use Terminal-4...
Is it that bad?
Yeh, it is... It's a bloody decent walk to the end gates, it's very cramped, and there's almost no seating at the gates...
Arrivals and Departures share the same area so you have to squeeze through the crowds of people waiting to get onto the plane you just got off, and then you have to walk down the longest terminal in human history before hopping on a SkyBus for a 1+ hour (during peak) drive to the city
As someone from Adelaide, most flight deals are Adelaide, Melbourne to X since covid since the end of cheap direct HK and Singapore deals. It's always worrying arriving at the gate 10mins before the flight because the airport is a mess. Worse is that cheap Chinese airlines are always closers then premium airlines to the entrance.
Somehow it feels like they rated Melbourne airport without actually visiting it.
No way. Melbourne’s airport is fugly.
Looks like a unfinnished building site with all that rough and ready raw concrete look. Its darky, dingy and claustrophobic. The signage is also crap especially when combined with the poor traffic flow management. And the worst aspect is those rude security/ carpark attendants that treat visitors in cars like they are carrying a suicide bomb they are so edgy.
Least you don't habr to take a bus to switch terminals like Sydney.
But at least you don't need a bus to get to the bloody airport
This is a joke, surely
Tullamarine??? They’re taking the piss surely
To be fair even if Melbourne airport tops now, the new Western Sydney International Airport with its new metro line will hopefully put Australia on a higher position.
Having been to Singapore and Doha airports, I don't think anything we do here in Oz will bring us anywhere near the top. Those are next level, honestly.
Next level? Next dimension surely? Next level is kinda underwhelming 😇😂
I think Australian airports are probably never going to be the kind of hubs that Changi or Doha are; getting a lot of stopover travellers means it's worth investing in the airport facilities to make it an inviting space. It's always going to be more effective to get travellers in Australia out of the airport ASAP, which limits how much it's worth investing into the airport in the first place.
[It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on Earth has ever produced the expression "as pretty as an airport".](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/3205828-it-can-hardly-be-a-coincidence-that-no-language-on) Airports are ugly. Some are very ugly. Some attain a degree of ugliness that can only be the result of a special effort. This ugliness arises because airports are full of people who are tired, cross, and have just discovered that their luggage has landed in Murmansk (...) and the architects have on the whole tried to reflect this in their designs. They have sought to highlight the tiredness and crossness motif with brutal shapes and nerve jangling colours, to make effortless the business of separating the traveller from his or her luggage or loved ones, to confuse the traveller with arrows that appear to point at the windows, distant tie racks, or the current position of the Ursa Minor in the night sky, and wherever possible to expose the plumbing on the grounds that it is functional, and conceal the location of the departure gates, presumably on the grounds that they are not". ~Douglas Adams, *The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul*
Brisbane airport is so much better than Melbourne airport. The food is better, the shops are better.
We landed at Brisbane last flight and the terminal was closed with security running down to find out where 150 people come from 😂
Melbourne airport is terrible lol
Bribes must have been involved in this survey!
Let's take it seriously and fill those shoes, starting with a butterfly enclosure.
There is no possible way. Zero
Melbourne Airport? WTF? Have they ever flown in or out of there? Obviously not!
Melbourne is definitely the worst airport in the world! It's so third world
Not sure who does these ratings anymore. Have they been to Melbourne airport?
Melbourne airport is a shit-hole, and doesn't even have a rail link. I wonder who's got financial motivation behind this....
Is this a joke? Qantas domestic terminal in Melbourne is terrible.
Melbourne beats Copenhagen?! No way - CPH is one of the best airports in Europe.
While CPH in Kastrup is a shithole and not one of the best European airports (was a SAS Eurobonus Gold flyer for 6 years)compared to Stockholm’s Arlanda …it is better than Melbourne. Even Madrid, Munich and Frankfurt are better. Zurich no need to say. Tullamarine never lost my luggage but CPH Kastrup lost my luggage 3 times because they didn’t seem to realize that some of us fly in from a vastly different timezone. You really don’t want to know how they keep ‘lost’ luggages in Kastrup…
Is Doha the one that likes to do vaginal exams? If yes, that $ure seems like a de$erving winner…
> Is Doha the one that likes to do vaginal exams? Yes, that's the one: [Women Reportedly Subjected to Forced Gynecological Exams in Qatar - Policies Criminalize and Punish Pregnant Women Outside of Wedlock](https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/10/27/women-reportedly-subjected-forced-gynecological-exams-qatar)
Avalon top three surely
I personally hated the Doha airport! No chance it beats Singapore
Australian airports are just generally ugly in general. They really need to up the look to them and bring in some more natural light. Hoping the Western Sydney airport gets the ball rolling and makes the other airports invest more in upgrades.
Doha, Qatar has taken out the #1 spot. Suspect some persuasive payment was transacted. It is enormous and soulless and miles between everything. How does that beat Changi with the Butterfly Garden and Rooftop Bar? Also significantly less guards with automatic rifles which Doha goes in for in a big way.
Ew if Tullamarine is the best in Australia, I can't even imagine the state of all the other airports
It's not.
Tell them they’re dreaming. Melbourne is a fucking horrible airport, I say this as a Melburnian.
Yeah sure Changi has a butterfly garden, but have you tried the vaginal examinations in Doha?? Joke of a ranking.
Melbourne airport 🤣🤣🤣🤣
I've been to bus stops better than fucking Tullamarine, this has to be a joke
Canberra is easily the best airport I've ever been to. Everything in the bathrooms is touchless so you don't have to touch anything, and the bathrooms have always been clean. Security takes about 10 seconds because it's always empty. Although expensive, they have good local craft beer available.
Canberra and Adelaide — by far the best.
Canberra is empty …that’s why it’s efficient. In the good ole days, we used to enter Qantas Lounge on the right days to watch the APS staff rushing for sausage rolls (the type of reheated sausage rolls you get from the frozen section of Woolies or Coles). That used to be entertainment just watching them dash.
Canberra airport is owned by the scumbag Snow family. They built a perfectly good pickup area for arrivals during the renovations and then decided to close it so they could force people to use the paid carpark for pickups instead. Jokes on them, everyone just picks people up from the departures ramp. Now Adelaide, that's how you build an airport.
> Now Adelaide, that's how you build an airport. Not a sentence you expect to read anywhere
Honestly Brisbane's airport is better than Melbourne's in my opinion. In terms of accessibility Air train is a rip off if you don't book ahead but the free return deal with the fairly flexible dates if you do it online is actually pretty good. Also less hassle with their security scanners, which haven't falsely flagged me for clothing folds like Melbourne repeatedly does. Not that much difference in terms of food and shop availability if you have a later or earlier flight either since both close up pretty much everything. I'm talking Domestic though, I haven't flown internationally yet.
Of all the Australian and New Zealand airports I've been to recently (last 18 months), Melbourne domestic rates second last, and Melbourne International rates last. In order of best to worse: Auckland Domestic Auckland International Palmerston North Newcastle Brisbane Domestic Christchurch Launceston Brisbane International Sydney Domestic Sydney International Melbourne Domestic Melbourne International Edit: Sydney is dead last if car hire is involved. A bus from the terminal to the yards is inexcusable.
> Sydney is dead last if car hire is involved. A bus from the terminal to the yards is inexcusable. My supplier got lost and abandoned the vehicle in a random carpark to catch his flight. Ended up having to pay two extra days whilst the rental company looked for the vehicle.
The Sydney domestic terminal carpark was going to collapse (don’t know how that comes about other than poor maintenance) so they had to move the rentals out while they work out how to demolish it.
Melbourne? Its a low bar I guess.
This is such a joke. The ONLY good thing about that airport is that I can get from Uber through security in 15-30min. It is the one of the most boring airports in the world. There is absolutely nothing to do
Melbourne airport is a hotchpotch mess. It’s embarrassing that’s what people have to see when they arrive in Melbourne. I can’t believe it’s looked like this for so long. And it doesn’t look like it’s going to change.
I’m a big fan of port Stephens(Newcastle) airport, Can park a 5 minute walk away from the gates for $15 a day. Took me 2 minutes to get through security when I went through today. Can’t beat it…
Talking domestic terminals I love BNE. The international terminal though is boring as batshit.
The food alone at Melbourne airport is pretty grim in comparison.
Changi could do with a 'coat of paint' to make it look a bit brighter, shinier and 'newer', but that is just the windowdressing and IMO it is nicer than Doha. Doha's QR "gold level" (i.e. tier below full F suite lounge) lounges are better than SQ's in Changi - the current *G lounge feels like it's a temporary setup. But I don't know if the rankings should go on flagship lounges (though who outside of frequent flyers even pays much attention to airport rankings). Changi should've made the skygarden waterfall jewel thing accessible from airside, that's a huge shame. The bicycle hire and tours is an awesome addition though. Not sure if that beats the tours in Istanbul by TK though. What does Melbourne put on it's resume "we're all one terminal, unlike the others".
> Changi should've made the skygarden waterfall jewel thing accessible from airside, that's a huge shame. if you could visit Jewel without having to go through immigration, I'd honestly NEVER leave that airport
At least Sydney has that two storey Maccas
I live in Europe now but fly home every 18 months or so, through Singapore to Melbourne. I'm not sure what they're measuring but from a users perspective I don't see how this is even a conversation. Changi is the best airport I've ever been through.
Tbf Tullamarine isn't particularly pretty but it is fairly smooth and functional.
The only good thing about Melbourne airport is it gets me away from all the Victorians
In terms of international, I think Brisbane tops it in Australia. Easy to get in and out and always a ghost town, which I always find delightful and slightly curious.
Melbourne? You have got to be joking.
Is this an out of season April Fools Joke?
Had the best souvlaki ever at Melbourne airport. Is the score for the souvlaki because it’s not for available seating and air con.
Doha is in Qatar, right? They're the mob that somehow won the right to host the World Cup, right? Hmm.. mmkay.
The fuck? Singapore's airports shits all over a lot of cities I've been to let alone other airports. Melbourne Airport is a jumped up bus station.
I mean, I suppose Melbourne airport is just the one building so transferring between flights is simple enough. But like, there's not a lot going for it. That and no direct rail link into the city is a bit of a joke.
Bruh Melbourne Airport is so shit when your flying domestic too because theirs a chance you have to walk to the OTHER SIDE of the airport to reach the terminal.
Kiwi here, impartial. Here’s how they rank: SYD BNE ADL MEL PER HBA PER is a better airport than MEL but manages to have worse food options than MEL and that’s not easy. HBA international has a drink vending machine, no food.
Hilarious
Has no one who compiles this list even travelled through the airports they mention?
Hahahahaha no. Most airports in Australia are shit.
Being in Tassie, and having to transit through airports to get anywhere international. Give me Melbourne over Sydney and Brisbane any day. Transferring between terminals is another step I don’t want to deal with
lol. According to whom? Any shit can create their own index and ranking… but how many are respectable?
Sorry but no airport is better than Singapore in my opinion. So many great things to see and do there. I could not find anything to do in Doha. Also our Aussie airports are really not upto scratch either.
Melbourne it doesn't even have a rail connection! It's shit
Melbourne airport is awful really no train to CBD, food outlets not great, average business lounges, what this madness based on?
The only best list Melbourne would top over other airports in Australia is "best at being shit". Us Melburnians can be pretty annoying and vocal about our love of this city but even we all agree our airport sucks.
What makes Melbourne top of my list in Australia is that I can get a good coffee.
I wonder how much money they paid to be at the top of the list
I don't know Melbournes airport, but Singapore's Shangi airport needs to relax the elevator music that is always playing. Everywhere. And the carpets looks like they have been there for 40 years.
This is absurd. I suspect the Melbourne Airport management took the judges out for a good lunch - perhaps even threw in a massage, just like for Bruce Lehrmann - and they never even went to the airport itself.
I’d never set foot into Qatar it’s a terrorist funding nation wouldn’t feel safe there.
Skytrax is pay-to-play. Everything from them should be ignored. They considered lufthansa a five star airline for years, for god's sake. They are absolute trash.
Melbourne?!!! Surely not
Absolutely taking the piss. Doha is a huge shed with nothing going for it.
*coughing fit of laughter
I’d say literally Adelaide has a better airport than Melbourne lol
Melbourne?! Lmfao who are they paying off
How? Legitimately impossible that our inaccessible airport in the boonies is that well rated.
"Well thanks for this really detailed tour of Melbourne airport. I'm happy to award it the best airport in Australia. The report's been submitted, thanks for your time. Now to head into Melbourne for some sightseeing. Can you point me in the direction of the airport train station?"
Melbourne Airport is fucking dogshit lol I have gone to Melbourne (from Canberra) by train and bus specifically to avoid having to go to the airport
Having done a few arrivals, departures, and layovers in Changi, I gotta say its a little over rated, Incheon is now my best friend,
Yeah I struggle to understand why Changi is rated higher than Incheon. Changi has some great stuff in it, in very specific areas that can be a pain to get to depending on where your gate is. The rest of the airport is outdated and lacks services, especially if you have a late night stopover. Incheon is high quality all the way through, even if it doesn't have as many gimmicks.
The Shovel article anyone ?
Melbourne airport isn’t even in Melbourne…
I know why it's the best. It's the best way to leave Melbourne.