Long lines and chaos for New Year’s travellers at Hobart Airport

New Year’s Day travellers have been met with long lines and a jam packed terminal at Hobart Airport on Sunday morning, as thousands of people jet off on holidays.

Hobart Airport luggage carousels after two flights came in. Picture: Linda Higginson

New Year’s Day travellers have been met with long lines and a jam packed terminal at Hobart Airport on Sunday morning, as thousands of people jet off on holidays.

Footage obtained by The Mercury depicts a long line of people waiting to pass through the security check point, with some travellers forced to wait up to 30 minutes.

The security screening queue stretched all the way to the airport cafe and spilt into the baggage collection area.

One traveller, Tim, told the Mercury the check in and bag drop process was “a mess”.

Tim and his family arrived at the airport with “plenty of time” ahead of their Melbourne-bound flight but were still forced to wait nearly an hour to check their bags, and another half an hour to pass through the security screening.

“A Qantas staff member advised us that we would have to wait 50 minutes as the checked in baggage area in airport operations area was too small,” he said.

“Airline staff say not enough baggage handlers and checked in luggage can’t cope.”

Tim said he was surprised by the lack of airport staff and customer service assistance in the terminal.

“No Hobart Airport people managing queues. Screening took us 30 minutes.”

Long lines at security screening at Hobart Airport on Sunday.

More than 60 flights were scheduled to fly in and out of the airport on Sunday.

While New Year’s Day has not seen as many flights as last week, Hobart Airport chief operating officer Matt Cocker said this was one of its busiest times of year.

Between 8500 and 8800 travellers were expected to pass through the terminal on Sunday.

“It’s in line with our previous couple of days and obviously it’s bumper summer season. Both inbound and outbound passenger numbers are pretty heavy,” Mr Cocker said.

“We make no apology for ensuring that safety and security are our number one priority. There’s not much point rushing to facilitate passengers through the screening point because, of course, we need to do the job correctly.”

The queue at the security screening check point on Sunday.

Mr Cocker said the simultaneous arrival of four inbound flights on Sunday may have contributed to some delays in the late morning.

“We had the international flight Air New Zealand arrive early – it was actually 30 minutes early – and it coincided with three domestic flights that were operating inbound at the same time, so they all landed basically on top of each other, which caused some delays for processing the domestic inbound passengers,” he said.

“At the same time, of course, when there are delays inbound, there’s going to be some issues with processing passengers outbound, but they weren’t significant delays.”

Mr Cocker said with so many people travelling over the New Year period, it was important to plan ahead.

“People should be mindful that it is very busy at this time of year and they should give themselves enough time to be able to go through those required processes.”

Hobart Airport’s busiest days of 2022 were December 23 and 30, with 84 flights scheduled for both days.

Originally published as Long lines and chaos for New Year’s travellers at Hobart Airport