Christmas 2007 Trip: In Sydney Airport

Sydney International Airport, Sydney Australia (SYD)
27 Dec at 7:15a

I followed the signs to Immigration and Customs. There was not much of a line at all, so it was smooth sailing, well almost. The officer asked me the flight number for my connecting flight, to which I answered “I don’t know.” He looked at me strange, then asked, is it the international Qantas flight, to which I said no as I was planning on taking the domestic flight at 1:20p anyways. He then let me through saying as long as I don’t take the international flight then it is O.K.

At customs, they sent me to the quarantine area and then another officer asked if I had any food and if it was all my bags and then let me go through without doing the quarantine as he deemed I was not a risk and had nothing to hide.

As it turns out, I damaged the edge of the computer, so when I close it, it does not stay off, but keeps shutting itself down as the latch seems to be broken. This is bizarre as this feature has been broken since I got the computer and I’ve been trying to get Fujitsu to fix it all the time; now they will just blame it on the computer being dropped and it will never be fixed at their expense; sigh…I can’t wait to hear how much they will charge me.

But I digress; outside, there were several meeters and greeters. I was thinking of possibly driving up to Cairns as I saw the car rental signs. I walked over to Thrifty and asked how much of a drive was Cairns. The lady looked at me strange and said that they only rent cars and that I should ask at the information desk and pointed to it. I ignored that comment and went over to Avis and asked the guy there the same question. He says, that it is about 12 hours to Brisbane and he was not sure how much further to Cairns. His answer for the time to Brisbane did it for me as I don’t have that much time to make it up there and stop and enjoy the Gold Coast. At Avis, they do try harder. I thanked him and headed towards the departure area which is located upstairs. I saw a Citibank ATM and stopped to use it, but the line was too long so I gave up.

While I waited, I was trying to connect to the Internet; Sydney airport had a connection which told you to connect to Opus and Telstar; the rates (quoted in AUD) from Opus were hard to comprehend, so I decided not to bother since I was not sure what I was doing just yet.

Upstairs, I saw that QF167 was leaving at 9:05a; it was 8:08a and you had to check-in in area D. I went there and told the lady of my plans; she says I should try the flight although is fully booked, actually over booked. I also asked about the other flights to Cairns that day. She said the 1:20p looked O.K., but the later one at 7:35p or so was full. I decided to just go ahead and try 167 then, so as not to chance it.

In a few minutes, I was called and given a seat. I cleared security and headed towards the gate through the Duty free area. As I walked, I saw a free Internet kiosk; I was in luck I thought. I waited until 8:45a and gave up on it. I did see the A380 at the gate across the way though and took pictures and a video, so you will see those later.

I went down to the gate and presented my boarding pass, which the electronic gate reader rejected. The agent checked and said that my seat was assigned to someone else. He said I should walk down with him and he will sort it out.