shonamac

I am booked on a QF flight (J class) to the US, departing SYD at 3PM. What is the earliest I could check in at SYD airport? I will be checking in bags and am a Oneworld Emerald member, if it matters at all,

number_6

Officially 3 hours before departure. Unofficially earlier checkin is offered as a WP (QFF Platinum) benefit, and might extend to OWE as this lets you use the rather fine QF F checkin area at SYD instead of the J queue.

Ausriver

QF international at SYD does all day check in. You can check in as early as the airport opens which is 4am. You status wouldn't help you in this case.

eminere

You can check in from 4am: link

number_6

Wow, QF has finally changed this -- interestingly other airports such as MEL has 3 hour limit on check-in time even today http://www.qantas.com/travel/airline...onal/global/en

Finally something that SYD does better than MEL Rather annoying that this QF rule is different for every airport.

serfty

I guess there are not enough QF international flights out of MEL to justify it.

eminere

It's been 4am at SYD for quite some time now.

sholmes149

Cruise ship docks at 7am. Do I have enough time to catch a Qantas flight at 11:30AM for US?

JClasstraveller

It depends on when you're allowed to get off the ship. It can take a couple of hours before you're allowed off and there's customs and immigration.

Assuming you dock at Overseas Passenger Terminal it's a 15 minute walk with luggage to Circular Quay station and then a 25 minute train ride (plus waiting time for a train) to SYD international terminal.

It also depends on if your ship arrives on time of course.

Personally, too tight but YMMV and others may have different opinions.

og

I wouldn't assume that a taxi will be any faster than the train option. Weekday traffic can be variable - slow or extremely slow.

I assume the ship arrives at Circular Quay? If not, then you'll need even more time.

Dave Noble

What is the impact if you miss the flight?

If you have a reasonably flexible ticket and there isn't going to be much impact if you miss the flight other than getting on the next one, then might as well try

If it is a ticket with high change fees and potentially a high fare difference to pay if you miss it, then I definitely would not be doing it. It seems too tight to me and would book a later flight - looking on EF, NZ has a connecting service via AKL in the afternoon most days

Annalisa12

I'd say tight too. It sometimes takes ages to get off a ship

Ausriver

According to QF website, the latest you can check in for your US flight will be 10am if you flying Y or PEY:

International Qantas operated services at all Australian international airports (QF1-QF399).
Economy/Premium Economy
90 minutes

Business/First
60 minutes

So you will need to be at the counter by 10am/10:30 depends on your class of travel.

and today
9:33 train depart at Circular Quay arrives International 9:53
10:03 train arrives 10:24
It is a direct train and it would be the fastest (most reliable) way to international airport. However, this would be the very latest train you can catch and you will need to run upstairs and talk to someone to let you jump the check in queue.

The question is: will you be able to catch the 9:33 train?

Alan in CBR

I would suggest this is too tight. We recently went on a cruise, and on arrival in Sydney we took a bus from Central station back to Canberra.

Even using the "we'll take our own luggage off the ship" option, by the time we had queued up for exiting, queued up for immigration, customs and quarantine, walked to Circular Quay train station, caught the train to Central and walked to the bus stand, we were only in time to catch the 11:00 bus to Canberra (buses leave at least every hour).

If we had been catching a flight I wouldn't have thought it was safe to take anything before about 1:00 pm.

sholmes149

Thanks for the inputs. Since we are flying with non-refundable tix, will either fly after 13:00 or the next day. Can't take a chance with late arrival or traffic.