Should Qantas have an Arrivals Lounge at Sydney Airport?

Do you think Qantas should build an Arrivals Lounge at Sydney airport for Business and First Class passengers?

Yes please build one. At the customs/quarantine place such that we can have some food and a nice wine whilst our baggage is examined. Thank you.

I've had this thought and think it would be a pretty good selliing point!

IMHO unnecessarily - those who arrived in Sydney should go for business, those who flying future overseas may use departure lounge and those who flying Melbourne may use domestic one.

But what about those arriving for business on, say, QF82? It arrives damn early (0650 in summer) and it would be fantastic to be able to have a shower, some food and a flat white before jumping on the train to the CBD.

It would be even better to have first class ticket for price of economy.

Personally-speaking, I'd appreciate a Qantas arrivals lounge at Sydney T1. Although the city is relatively close to the airport, it's still at least a 20 minute drive in the morning pre-peak time - the same time as on the airport express trains at Hong Kong or Heathrow – and I know that at both those airports, on early arrival I've sometimes enjoyed ducking into the CX or BA arrivals lounge to grab a light bite, freshen up, send off email written on the flight etc.

That's also true if you can't check in for your hotel too early – for some visiting business travellers, an arrivals lounge could help them get ready to go straight into meetings (especially if there was a shirt-pressing service, for example).

It wouldn't be for everyone, but then neither are the CX or BA lounges – however, having them as an option is great.

But with SYD being so crowded they're probably want to restrict the lounge to Qantas-only travellers and purely for first, business and perhaps Platinum One members.

Let's also not forget that Platinum and Platinum One members can technically head to the domestic business class lounge after arriving internationally without an onward connection (the rule: "Must be travelling on any flight the same day that shows Qantas^, Emirates^, Jetstar Airlines+ or a oneworld operated and marketed flight.").

A bit of a pain to change terminals in Sydney and doesn't apply to paid-up first and business class travellers without frequent flyer status, but it's better than nothing!

Chris, Qantas has a transfer bus from T1 to T3 but I think you can only use this if you have an onward domestic boarding pass, such as SYD-MEL for example? Showing them the boarding pass for the flight you have just come off (eg HKG-SYD) doesn't work, I have tried and they insist you must have a boarding pass for a connecting domestic QF flight. Which means you have to pay for a regular intern-terminal bus (rip-off) or the train (rip-off). Neither are very appealing.

Correct, thus the "bit of a pain" to transfer between terminals.

You can, however, exploit a loophole in the AirportLink system and buy a weekly GatePass; you can then stopover at T3 without needing to take a bus but you'd still need to walk a bit and clear security.

This is one reason I book myself on connections via MEL coming home to SYD.