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Brisbane Airport has said travellers enjoyed a “very smooth period” during the state’s school holidays, with the maximum wait time to pass through security peaking at only 20 minutes.
It follows previous end-of-term getaways leading to record nationwide delays in April, June and July as the industry battled chronic staff shortages and COVID-19 absences.
Victoria and Queensland were the first states to begin their holiday period and were followed shortly by the ACT, NSW, NT and WA on 24 September, while SA’s will begin on 1 October.
The airport’s head of public affairs, Stephan Beckett, said, “Brisbane Airport and our airline partners have worked hard to ensure Queenslanders could get away for a well-deserved break.
“We’ve also been the gateway for thousands of tourists to enjoy what Queensland has to offer, with huge benefits for jobs in our tourism industry.”
Brisbane’s wait time estimate backs up an independent analysis by Australian Aviation earlier this month, which showed it and Melbourne were coping well with the increase in numbers.
Brisbane is also predicting that 300,000 people will travel through the domestic and international terminals over the next five days.
“A post-pandemic record is forecast in the International Terminal with the number of daily passengers to exceed 13,000 for the first time since 2019,” the airport said in a statement.
“Numbers will be boosted with China Airlines increasing the frequency of Brisbane-Taipei flights and restarting Brisbane-Auckland services.
“International capacity will be further boosted in the coming month to meet growing demand. In late October, United Airlines commences direct San Francisco to Brisbane flights, further establishing BNE as a hub for Queensland’s job-generating tourism industry.
“The number of seats across the Tasman is also about to be boosted. Qantas will shortly double the number of services between Brisbane and Auckland from late October (to twice daily). In another boost, Virgin Australia will commence Brisbane to Queenstown services from early November.”
It comes after Australian Aviation reported earlier this month how Qantas backed up recent statements that its service is improving, with independent figures revealing its on-time departures leapt from 45 per cent in July to 62 per cent in August.
Across the entire industry that month, on-time arrivals stood at 68.5 per cent and departures at 68.8 per cent, compared to 55 per cent and 54 per cent, respectively, in July.
However, the BITRE report from the department of transport warned that the figures are still “significantly lower” than the long-term performance, including pre-COVID data.
ray
says:Chronic Staff Shortages,
What a load of BULLSHIT ,
reemploy all the people who were sacked or laid off ,
anyone would think it’s a government department with that sort of excuse,
the govt couldn’t run a chook raffle ,