Still on Australia, we were visiting the beautiful state of Queensland in December.
Contrary to what we expected, the arrival at Brisbane Airport was without too much hassle over imported plants, fruits or toxic soil on our golf shoes.
It was the departure from Brisbane ten days later that brought back nightmarish and scandalous scenes of cattle herding, which we experienced at other airports last year, including London Heathrow and Paris CDG.
Ironically, the shocking experience of rudeness, incompetence and total lack of service in an overcrowded departure hall, reminded us of a slogan many years ago, which the cargo folks at Brisbane Airport came up with to promote cargo through Brisbane.
"Wizz thru Bris" was the slogan, if we remember correctly.
Just to be sure, the reason for the overcrowded departure hall is pure and simple greed on the part of the airport management, which first allowed numerous tax-free shops to be constructed up to a few metres from the security check points, which in turn are located smack behind passport control and thus create enormous bottlenecks.
We won’t return to Brisbane until the airport manages to get this mess under control and a new terminal next door opens. In the meantime we suggest to kick out a few tax-free shops to create space for immigration and security to do their jobs. As we said the chaos is caused by pure and simple greed.