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Sydney Airport is making a push for more transparency in airport operations with a new security wait time tracker on its website.
The tracker, which shows approximate wait times for security at all three terminals, refreshes every 60 seconds and will allow passengers to plan their arrival at the airport ahead of time. It comes as the March quarter delivers a 93.7 per cent post-COVID passenger recovery compared to Q1 2019.
“Throughout Q1, 100 per cent of domestic passengers and 99.9 per cent of international passengers passed through security in less than 10 minutes,” the airport said in a press release.
“At the T2 and T3 Domestic terminals, 92.6 per cent of passengers departed on time for their flight during the first wave of departures, with 83.6 per cent of passengers departing on time for international services.
“Traffic across the precinct flowed well, with minimal wait times for taxis at all terminals, while at the international terminal there were only five instances throughout Q1 when drop-off times briefly rose above 10 minutes.”
10.3 million passengers passed through Sydney Airport’s terminals in the first quarter of 2024, a 14.4 per cent increase on passenger traffic from the same time in 2023. International traffic was 96.6 per cent recovered, with 4.16 million passengers, while domestic saw 6.16 million passengers, or a 91.9 per cent recovery on the March quarter of 2019.
The strong start to the year is a good sign for the airport’s growth, said Sydney Airport CEO Scott Charlton.
“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.”
Sydney’s recovery is still lagging behind its domestic competitors, with Hobart and Perth Airports now exceeding pre-COVID levels, while Melbourne’s international figures are also above 2019.
