Wallabies get jump on hecklers at airport

Sekope Kepu of the Wallabies. Photo / Getty Images

Fans who hoped to greet - or heckle - the Wallabies when they flew into Auckland Airport last night would have been left waiting in vain.

In preparation for the Rugby World Cup, border agencies at the airport have set up a special "border facilitation process" for arriving teams.

Customs, Immigration and MAF Biosecurity officers process the team members in a special area away from other passengers, and they then exit some distance from the arrivals hall.

The Wallabies, several Super 15 squads and the Australian rugby league team have gone through the process as "dry runs" for next month's tournament.

General manager of airport retail and commercial Adrian Littlewood said Auckland 2011 would organise official welcomes for many of the Cup teams, which the public could attend.

"It's just simply saying that when you've got teams arriving, you want to give them a great experience and get through the border requirements as easily as possible."

The process would not be used for VIPs, but the airport had plans to assist certain visitors through customs.

"We know there's a lot coming through. The level of assistance varies, for major VIPs it can be a greeting at the gate and an escort through the process. It's not a fully escorted process because customs and security do need to follow their processes still ... but we want to give them a good experience as well."

Just under 20 private jets have confirmed they will arrive at the airport during the Cup, and Mr Littlewood said that figure was likely to rise.

"We have some predictions, but they're not specific. And part of the problem is these kind of people often don't make up their mind until very late in the piece."

He said information on who would be arriving on the jets or where they came from was confidential.

Airports in South Africa during the Football World Cup had to deal with an unexpected influx of private jets.

"If suddenly a whole lot of people turn up, where do you park the planes? Because that's actually the hardest thing ... so we have contingency plans."

Private companies handled bookings for private jets, and border agency officials processed passengers in a separate area.