Terminal velocity

Compare that with some of the world’s most efficient airports – Helsinki, Munich, Vienna, Zurich. Connecting times as low as half an hour – yes, international to domestic. Watch the departure boards of those airports the next time you’re there and see banks of arriving and departing flights with sensibly timed connections, in buildings designed for passengers, with shops designed for passengers’ needs rather than the reverse.

At Munich, it’s a three minute walk from the kerb to the gate – including security. Four minutes if you’re checking a bag. At Helsinki, long-haul flights are actively sped up or slowed down while in the air so they land in the order of their connections’ priority. Vienna and Zurich have separated levels for connections within and outside the European Schengen visa zone – no extra hike for longer haul flights.

It’s no coincidence that these airports work closely with their principal airlines. Lufthansa is a part owner of its Terminal 2 hub at Munich. Helsinki Airport is state-owned, as is much of Finnair, and the two recognise their symbiotic relationship.

That’s just not the case in Australia, where the airport operators’ interests collide with the airlines’. Airports win when passengers spend time and money with nothing else to do and nowhere to sit down and work. Airlines win when the passenger experience is swift and smooth. Australian airports don’t want passengers to move quickly past their shops and restaurants to relax in comfortable, pleasant gate areas. And the airlines don’t seem to be able to do much about it, for the most part.

No soaring concourses like Singapore, Seoul or Shanghai across mostof Australia (no pressure, designers of the new Brisbane international terminal). It’s industrial ceilings with the only glitz coming from super-luxury stores in which the fortunate few who can afford the wares never seem to be shopping.

But getting to and from Australia’s major airports is even worse than being there. Taking the Skybus into Melbourne is an embarrassment of waiting outside in the elements, paying through the nose to get on, sitting on an uncomfortable seat, probably holding your luggage because there’s only floor-level storage for a half-dozen bags, listening to blaring advertisements and arriving in the dismal concrete bowels of Southern Cross. Sydney’s train is eyewateringly expensive for what you get, though it at least passes through the CBD. Brisbane’s, too, is painfully pricey. And taxis from all three are badly managed, involve a dingy queueing area, and are often more expensive than a ride to Manhattan from New York JFK.

All of which makes Australia one of the countries where regular travellers really benefit from lounge access. And it’s counterintuitively perplexing that Australia has some of the best lounges but the worst airports.

Qantas’s lounges are world-class, even if the Sydney business lounge is occasionally swamped by other airlines’ passengers. The international First lounge is quite literally spectacular. Virgin Australia’s domestic lounges are comfortable and chic – though the much-promised international lounges can’t arrive soon enough, especially at Sydney, where the Air New Zealand lounges are not up to snuff.

Fortunately – and unlike most other countries – you can buy your way in, though the cost-benefit of the lounge programs is unlikely to make sense for many travellers. If you fly frequently enough to make membership worth it, then you’re quite probably flying enough to reach the Gold tier and its attendant lounge benefits. If you’re not, it’s unlikely that spending up on lounge access is the wisest investment.

But for the majority of airline passengers, the impressive investment in lounges passes them by. Airlines and airports need to recognise the importance of the passenger experience on the ground, and the prospect of a second Sydney airport competing with Kingsford Smith could provide the impetus and example Australia needs in order to do so. Brisbane, all eyes are on you.