Sydney airport chief Geoff Culbert aims for ‘magical’ touch

Arriving into Sydney International Airport is not the ‘welcome to Australia’ Geoff Culbert would like.

Sydney Airport chief executive Geoff Culbert. Picture: Chris Pavlich

Arriving into Sydney International Airport is not the “welcome to Australia” Geoff Culbert would like.

The airport chief executive said getting off an aeroplane from a foreign country for an Australian visit or to return home should be a “magical” experience and one that leaves travellers in no doubt as to where they are.

“At the moment I do feel that our arrivals experience at Sydney airport isn’t good enough,” Mr Culbert told The Australian.

“I want Sydney airport to be a place that Sydneysiders and Australians are proud of, so when they arrive home and they get off the plane at the gate, they have this immediate feeling of ‘I’m back home and I’m really proud of my home airport’.

“And for foreigners and tourists coming to visit Australia, I want them to feel like ‘wow, I’m in Australia, how cool is this?’ when they land.”

A project under way aimed to improve the arrivals experience, including “the look, the design and the feel of it”, he said.

“It should reflect who we are as a culture and who we are as a ­nation, so we’re working on that at the moment.”

More broadly, Mr Culbert would like to see a return of “a bit of glamour” to air travel, starting with the airport experience.

He said over the past couple of decades, travel had started to become a means to an end when it should be the start of an exciting journey or holiday.

“We’re trying to do things with our terminals to bring back a little bit of that excitement and glamour around travel, to make sure their holiday starts when they get to the airport,” Mr Culbert said.

That includes revisiting the way the terminals are set up, from the range of food and beverage options to the mix of retailers.

In addition to the usual clothing, souvenir and duty-free offerings, Sydney airport may soon be giving passengers the chance to have a pre-flight blow dry, manicure or facial.

A gin bar and more “fine dining” options could also be on the cards if Mr Culbert has his way, to meet wide-ranging demand.

“We now have 47 airlines operating out of Sydney airport, which creates a lot of choice for people,” he said.

“At the same time, you’ve got this macroeconomic dynamic where the middle classes around the world are continually rising at the same time as airfares come down. It creates a lot of oppor­tunities.”

Mr Culbert said investment in technology was also important to make the passenger experience faster and more efficient.

“Australians are very adept and early adopters of technology, so we can bring the latest technology to the airport to smooth that passenger experience,” he said. “We’ve got the electronic gates at departure and arrival which has reduced processing times from four minutes down to 23 seconds per passenger.”

For inbound travellers, passengers were being processed so fast they had started to complain that their bags were now taking longer to come out.

“They’re not taking longer, it’s just that they’re getting through security so much faster,” Mr Culbert said. “Our next challenge is how do we speed up the baggage process to provide that entire experience for them.”