Friday 19 May 2023

A total of 3,090,000 passengers passed through Sydney Airport in April 2023, representing an 83.9% recovery compared to pre-pandemic April 2019.

Domestic passenger traffic increased 1.2% year-on-year with 1,963,000 travellers through the terminals in April. This represents an 85.9% recovery rate compared to April 2019.

A total of 1,127,000 passengers passed through the T1 International terminal in April, which is more than double the number seen last April and 80.6% recovered on pre-pandemic April 2019 passenger traffic.

Chinese passenger numbers growing

Chinese passport holders ranked third in the list of top 10 nationalities to fly through Sydney in April, moving up from fifth place in March 2023.

The April number represents a 53.8% recovery on pre-pandemic April 2019 and was a significant jump up from the 39.6% recovery rate in March highlighting the ongoing recovery of the China market since borders reopened.

Sydney Airport CEO, Geoff Culbert, said while the domestic aviation recovery remained sluggish due to ongoing high airfares and capacity reductions, the international recovery continues to gain momentum, with a strong surge of passengers from China.

“It’s phenomenal to see the number of Chinese nationals visiting Sydney already more than 50 per cent recovered on pre-pandemic levels, especially considering the border only fully reopened in March,” he said.

“At the end of this month Sydney Airport will have seven mainland Chinese passenger carriers offering 30 return services per week, with even more flights to be added soon. That’s remarkable considering we started the year with just three airlines flying four return services to mainland China a week.

“Capacity across the entire international market is building, with carriers including Singapore Airlines, United Airlines and Asiana Airlines all recently announcing additional flights to Sydney.”

New flights recently announced

To mainland China

• Beijing Capital Airlines returned to Sydney Airport in April, offering 2 weekly services nonstop to Qingdao
• Hainan Airlines will return to Sydney Airport tomorrow (20 May) flying 2 weekly services to Haikou then on to Taiyuan
• Xiamen Airlines will be flying 7 services per week to Xiamen from 28 May, up from 4 per week
• China Southern Airlines will offer double daily services to Guangzhou starting 8 June, up from 10 per week
• China Eastern Airlines will increase its Shanghai Pudong flights to 11 per week from 23 June, up from 7 per week

Other international destinations

• Singapore Airlines’ 4 daily services on the Singapore – Sydney route are now back to its pre-COVID double daily Airbus A380 operation with yesterday’s introduction of a second daily superjumbo (18 May)
• Asiana Airlines will increase its daily service to Seoul to 9 flights per week from 8 August, operating the A380 four days a week
• United Airlines will offer 2 daily flights to San Francisco from 28 October, up from 7 per week

ENDS

1. Due to data availability, all international passenger numbers (including PCP, prior corresponding period comparisons) are based on Confirmed Airline Passenger (CAP) data. As per previous information releases, these figures may contain estimates with any adjustments to preliminary statistics included in the year-to-date results in future months

2. Includes Domestic-on-Carriage

3. All data is for arriving and departing international passengers. All data is taken from management accounts, is provisional and subject to revision. All data has been rounded to the nearest thousand and in some instances the total may not be equal to the sum of the parts. Percentage changes have been calculated based on actual figures