Paper forms and grumpy staff: is this major Australian airport stuck in the 1990s?

Flying into Singapore recently, I was super impressed.

Days before departure, I filled out a simple online arrival form - where I was coming from, where I was staying, when I was leaving. On arrival, I scanned my passport and walked straight into the country.

Simple.

Even more recently, I flew into Hong Kong. I searched Smartraveller before departure, expecting another form. There wasn't one. I stepped off the plane, an official glanced at my passport and waved me through.

Also simple.

Now I'm due to fly home to Sydney. And I already know it won't be simple.

Because at Sydney Airport, we're still operating like it's the 1990s.

Last time I flew home, I filled out a paper customs form on the plane. No one had a pen. The man across the aisle didn't even get a form because the flight attendants had run out. Presumably he had to collect one on arrival and fill it out amid the chaos of renovations, upgrades and thousands of confused travellers wondering where they were supposed to stand.

More than 40 million passengers passed through Sydney Airport in 2025. It's the biggest in Australia. So why does it still feel like last century?

Upgrade works to the tune of $6 billion are underway, and halle-bloody-lujah. Not a moment too soon. But in the meantime, the journey to get from the bag drop to the aircraft rivals the length of the flight.

My Hong Kong trip started promisingly: machine check-in and automated bag drop. Excellent. That usually means fewer queues and a smoother experience.

Except the scanner wouldn't read my ticket.

Or anyone else's.

So much for seamless travel.

Then came customs clearance. A staff member barked, "Number 5! Number 5!" - directing me to lane five to load my bags onto the conveyor belt for scanning. Had they never heard of the word please?

I honestly don't understand why customs staff have to be so grumpy. Yes, their job involves crowd control. But so do plenty of others. I went to an Oasis concert in Sydney last year where security staff scanned 80,000 people into the venue - and they were still smiling.

Granted, there are some great inroads being made at Sydney Airport: you no longer have to take your liquids, aerosols and laptops out of your carry-on bags for scanning, which is a huge bonus.

But my frustrations didn't end at border control.

Once through, I couldn't find my gate. That's because it didn't exist. Or it did, but there was no signage for it, and there was no indication on the departures board that that's where my flight was taking off from. Luckily, the Qantas app told me which gate to go to, so I proceeded to an area near where I thought that gate might be, and a staff member told me I was in the right place. Then I stood around for 40 minutes because there weren't enough seats.

And just when I thought we were finally boarding the plane, we boarded a shuttle bus instead, which took us out onto the tarmac to board the plane. And then we were 45 minutes late taking off because there was a queue to use the runway.

Not really. Sydney is Australia's front door. It should have been upgraded years ago. Is that why the staff are so angry?

I've travelled through some beautifully run airports. Singapore. Hong Kong. Airports where technology works, signage makes sense and staff don't appear personally offended by your existence. Sydney Airport has never been easy - hello gridlocked traffic at 11am on a Tuesday - and right now it's harder than ever. While renovations are happening, the experience somehow feels worse, not better.

Yes, I'm holding out hope for the shiny new terminal, the swing gates, the better roads, the promised future.

And maybe, just maybe, one day we won't be filling out paper forms mid-flight, borrowing strangers' pens like it's 1994.

Until then, I'll keep declaring my muesli bars with nuts in them because the queue for people declaring items is always shorter.

What an embarrassment all those travellers from Singapore and Hong Kong must think Sydney Airport is.

And what a breeze it must be for them returning to their smooth-operating airports back at home.