Sydney Airport delivered a strong start to 2024 with a total of 10.3 million passengers passing through the terminals in Q1. This represents a 14.4% increase on passenger traffic during the same period last year and a 93.7% recovery compared to Q1 2019.

Sydney Airport’s T1 international terminal saw 4.16 million passengers pass through in Q1, a 25.1% increase on the same period last year and a 96.6% recovery rate on Q1 2019.

Domestic and regional passenger traffic was up 8.2% on the same period last year, with 6.16 million passengers coming through the T2 and T3 domestic terminals and a 91.9% recovery rate on Q1 2019.

During Q1, travellers on Australian passports grew 3.1% compared to Q1 2019, with the number of passengers from New Zealand, South Korea, India and the Philippines also above 2019 levels.

Improving transparency on operational performance

Operationally, the airport also performed strongly over the period delivering a positive experience for passengers travelling through the airport.

To deliver greater transparency on operations at the airport, a live feed of security wait times was launched during the quarter on Sydney Airport’s website with data refreshed every 60 seconds. Passengers can now check the website ahead of travel to understand how the security wait times are progressing within each terminal, delivering a better passenger experience.

Throughout Q1, 100% of domestic passengers and 99.9% of international passengers passed through security in less than 10 minutes. At the T2 and T3 Domestic terminals, 92.6% of passengers departed on time for their flight during the first wave of departures, with 83.6% of passengers departing on time for international services.

Traffic across the precinct flowed well, with minimal wait times. At the international terminal there were only five instances throughout Q1 when drop-off times briefly rose above 10 minutes.

Sydney Airport CEO Scott Charlton said the strong start to the year sets a positive trajectory for the airport’s growth.

“It took us 100 years to reach our first billion passengers, from 1919 to 2019. We’re forecast to hit 2 billion within the next 20 years, and we’ll get there by working closely with our airline partners, improving our operational performance and unlocking capacity through targeted investments,” he said.

“The Q1 passenger data shows us that on the domestic front, higher airfares, lack of capacity and a downturn in discretionary business travel has affected demand. This is contrasted with relatively higher seat capacity and competition on major international routes which underpinned strong international passenger volumes for the quarter.

“In terms of our operational performance, we’re focused on efficiency and delivering a seamless experience for all stakeholders, on-airport partners, and most importantly, passengers.

“We had a really strong Easter peak with passengers through security in under 10 minutes and we’re pleased to now showcase security wait times on our website for the first time as we understand getting through security quickly and seamlessly is important for passengers.

“Performance levels through Q1 were strong across security throughput, on time departures and traffic flowed well in and out of the precinct.

“We’re going to continue to be more transparent of our operational metrics as we move through the year, as well as working with airlines to deliver extra seat capacity and secure new services as we grow the airport’s capacity.”

Passenger and operational performance data

Click here for the Q1 passenger and performance data.