Auckland Airport (AKL) — Local services in Māngere-Ōtāhuhu

Do what you can to avoid traveling internationally to and from this airport. Upon arrival from Melbourne at 1am after a 1 hour delay from our flight, we were greeted with a 1 hour wait for our bags, plus ANOTHER 90 minutes to go through bio security. We finally checked into our hotel around 4am. To depart back to Melbourne, we arrived to the airport early at 3am for our 6am flight, trying to learn our lesson from last time, but the airline check in was closed. When it opened and we checked in our bags, we had to wait until 4:30am BEFORE we could go through security. You just can’t win at this airport. It’s clear that the logistics here of getting people from one place to another are maddeningly inefficient, and those processes are plagued by staff shortages and construction at the airport. I really expected better from...

Worst airport experience I've ever had for departures. Massive queues for check-in with unclear signage as to who should be in which lane. Half of the fellow passengers were in the wrong lane. Then there is security where there is an endless queue. It took 1 hour and 20 minutes from joining the queue to getting out of the other side. There were other passengers having panic attacks as their flight was leaving without them getting through security. Made the experience very stressful. Then there are the shops. If you need to buy handbags or alcohol then this is the place for you. But if you need something helpful like a pharmacy, think again!! Also, the slowness of security checks meant there was no time to do much shopping. Finally, at the gates, there are no shops selling food like sandwiches....

Here’s a revised version of the complaint:

It is unbelievable how Auckland Airport has completely messed up the drop-off parking, turning it into a chaotic traffic jam.

Regarding the Sigal car drop-off for private vehicles, there was an absurd 15-minute queue, which has never happened before!

The new setup has ruined the entire experience of driving to the airport.

Well done on another design failure: having only three machines in the car park for thousands of people is causing ridiculous queues, making it take 15 minutes just to...