Australia, New Zealand & the South Pacific - Need advice: safe to offer a client meeting on an 8-hour SYD layover?

I am considering a USA West Coast to SIN routing via Sydney. The flight from the West Coast would arrive in SYD on a Monday morning at either ~7:30am or ~8:30am while the connection would be between 4:30pm and 5:30pm.

I have a SYD-based client whom I have never met in person and would like to meet if there is enough time in Sydney. It's been a while since my last visit to SYD so I am not up to date.

Would I be able to safely meet the client at 1pm or 2pm and still get back to the airport in time for my connection? I've read some frightening SYD airport reviews (and one of the flights I am considering, QF 108, often arrives late by an hour or more), but I am not sure how dated this info is.

I can't afford to miss the meeting due to any sort of delay on arrival and I also can't afford to miss my connecting flight. The easy solution is to just hang out at the airport, but I also want to make use of the time in SYD since I wouldn't be able to meet the client in person otherwise.

I intend to check my bags through to SIN but would probably have a carryon that I would take into town (and the meeting).

The plan right now is to grab a shower in the QF lounge after arrival (assuming I get all my boarding passes at LAX or SFO) and then hop on the train to Circular Quay and walk or cab it to the client. After the meeting, I could take a cab back to the airport or take the train, whichever is more certain in terms of arrival time at the airport.

Is this a reasonable idea? Thank you in advance for any advice.

Based on my experiences (most recently a relaxed, leisurely late May meeting with a client near Circular Quay during a six-hour layover, though domestic-to-international rather than international-to-international and without the shower) I'd say you should be fine.

Plan for 1 or 1:30 pm, not 2, unless you expect a ten-minute meeting. You don't want to plan to leave the CBD to return to SYD much past 2:30 for an international flight, though you could cut it a bit closer and probably still be OK, and you don't want to be checking your watch every minute. If you have to check in, status with your SYD-SIN carrier will save a bit of time.

As for missing the meeting: let's face it, stuff happens. Flights can be five hours late or cancelled entirely. Your client surely knows this. Given that the person is already a client, he or she also has an impression of your reliability (hopefully a good one) based on your work history. Give the client your flight number, arrange that you'll e-mail from the States in the event of a significant departure delay, and trust that things will work out. In all likelihood, they will. (And have a Plan B to get to SIN on time, just in case.)

If you cannot afford to miss the meeting due to any delay I would not schedule it. If the flight is at 16:30, you would want to ensure that you were back at 15:30 and so be leaving by 15:00. A 14:00 meeting would leave a max of an hour

If you were to have a meeting at around 11:00, then you would have plenty of time for a meeting but also have the risk that if there was were delays you could be late

There is easily enough time to catch up but would not do it if the meeting is so critical that if scheduled, must happen as scheduled

Is the client really that bad that will not make an appointment for, say 11, and be understanding that there could be an issue if there was a long delay?

Dave

SYD airport is one of the better ones in the world and more efficient than LAX or JFK, etc. as a point of comparison. It would be harder to have a meeting in Manhattan from JFK than in CBD from Sydney, so you will be fine.

Shower is a bit problematic, as there is no departure lounge so you would have to clear security to airside international to get to the lounge; then go back down to arrivals to clear immigration and customs to go landside. This is not routinely allowed, you may need to get an escort, but it shouldn't be a problem -- just not routine. Customs may give you a special inspection if they decide you fit the drug courier profile. All depends on how fallinasleep you look.

If you are arriving at 7:30 and exiting the Airport with just your cabin bag, you should be able to get to Circular Quay in 90 or so minutes.

Re. Shower at QF Lounge - I' don't think this would work. To get to the QF lounge you'll have to clear transit security at the arrivals level and then head to the Departures. I'm not entirely sure if you'd be allowed to go to inbound immigration once you are at the departures level (then again, this is possible at HKG so it might be possible at SYD too).

You should have plenty of time if your inbound isn't late. Even landing at 8:30, you can still make lunch at noon. Of course, you should stress to your client that you're coming out just for them and may be subject to delay.

A few years ago, I did go back out after going through Transit, but the staff at Transit won't like it. I don't know if they still allow you to do that now.

You should aim to leave Circular Quay back to the airport around 3pm for a 4:30 departure.