iscover
Sydney Airport has seen solid growth in the third quarter of 2024, but still has yet to reach pre-COVID-19 passenger numbers as domestic travel languishes.
Australia’s largest international gateway saw a total of 10.3 million passengers for the quarter, up 3.3 per cent on the same period in 2023, but still only 92.5 per cent of 2019 levels.
This content is available exclusively to Australian Aviation members.
A monthly membership is only $5.99 or save with our annual plans.
- Australian Aviation quarterly print & digital magazines
- Access to In Focus reports every month on our website
- Unlimited access to all Australian Aviation digital content
- Access to the Australian Aviation app
- Australian Aviation quarterly print & digital magazines
- Access to In Focus reports every month on our website
- Access to our Behind the Lens photo galleries and other exclusive content
- Daily news updates via our email bulletin
- Unlimited access to all Australian Aviation digital content
- Access to the Australian Aviation app
- Australian Aviation quarterly print & digital magazines
- Access to In Focus reports every month on our website
- Access to our Behind the Lens photo galleries and other exclusive content
- Daily news updates via our email bulletin
International traffic saw a 95.7 per cent recovery on 2019 levels, with 4 million passengers – up 5.8 per cent on Q3 2023 – while domestic traffic was only 90.5 per cent recovered, with 6.3 million passengers, just a 1.8 per cent improvement on last year.
The 90.5 per cent domestic recovery rate is exactly the same as in the June quarter, which saw a 92 per cent recovery overall on 2019.
According to Sydney Airport CEO Scott Charlton, the airport is pleased with international traffic despite supply chain “headwinds” affecting airline capacity. Domestic performance, meanwhile, is still being impacted by a shift in discretionary business travel.
“We’ve seen a significant increase in airline seat capacity that’s translating into passenger numbers from countries like India, the Philippines and South Korea increasing relative to 2019 levels,” Charlton said.
“In the case of South Korea, this nationality has increased by 54 per cent compared to 2019 and in Q3 moved above the United Kingdom to become our 5th largest passenger group.
“We remain optimistic on the outlook for Chinese passengers as tour groups return, and with new mainland China carriers like Juneyao Air joining before the end of the year, and existing carriers boosting capacity, we expect to finish the year very close to pre-COVID levels of Chinese passengers.”
The airport’s operational performance is also strong, said Charlton, with 100 per cent of travellers passing through security in under 10 minutes and no instances during the quarter of kerbside drop-off times exceeding 10 minutes.
Sydney is also investing in extra new e-gate kiosks to be operated by the Australian Border Force to improve inbound processing times.
“Operationally, we’re consistently beating our 10-minute metric for kerbside drop-off times and security processing, which is pleasing because it reflects our focus on creating a faster and more efficient experience for passengers,” Charlton said.
“We are also continuing with our transparency agenda and will shortly be launching kerbside wait times on our website, which follows the deployment of live security wait times back in May.
“Providing visibility into how the airport is performing in real time is important in terms of passengers planning their trip to the airport, and getting an insight into what their experience will be like when they get here.”
Figures in July showed that Perth Airport had exceeded its pre-pandemic capacity for the 2023–24 financial year, while Melbourne and Brisbane each hovered around 95 per cent of pre-pandemic figures.
