Tales of woe from the arrivals lounge at Auckland International Airport have been flooding into the NZ Herald newsdesk this afternoon, with several passengers vowing never to use the airport again.
Their complaints follow reports of two-hour queues at the airport last night, with some passengers left feeling unsafe in the crowded arrivals and baggage halls.
Last night an airport spokeswoman said the issue was due to an influx of several delayed flights which added to the usual peak-time congestion.
But passengers said while the baggage handling area was chaotic, there also appeared to be only two Customs officials on duty at passport control.
Readers have responded confirming last night's chaos but many add that it is a frequent occurrence at New Zealand's biggest airport, with several calling the airport "third world".
Trevor Jones - who arrived back from a Europe trip two weeks ago - said the arrival hall had not been up to international standards for the past two years.
"When there are two or more flights arriving at similar times it is a shambles and the queues are diabolical."
Wendy Smith arrived around midnight last Monday with chocolate and dried mango in her bag, and headed for the "something to declare" lane.
The queue was huge, and the desk was manned by one person while four people were manning the "nothing to declare" line.
"People were trying to be responsible by declaring goods but with only one person manning the booth I was very tempted to skip lanes," she said. "Why couldn't they have seen what was happening and put at least another person on the "declare" lane? ... We got out of there about 1.20am!"