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Australia has seen its strongest end-of-year peak for international travel in half a decade, according to Airservices Australia, though domestic travel declined slightly.
Last month, Australia saw 21,076 total international flights, up 5 per cent year-on-year and 11.8 per cent month-on-month, while domestic flights declined 2 per cent year-on-year to 91,547, according to Airservices’ Australian Aviation Network Overview report for December 2024.
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On average, Australia saw 3,633 flights per day in December, down 1 per cent year on year.
“Recent growth in the Australian aviation network has been driven by Jetstar’s trans-Tasman expansions and capacity increase from airlines from China, United States and Malaysia,” Airservices wrote.
“All international markets, with the exception of Europe, recorded strong growth recently. Comparing the December month in 2024 versus 2023, 16 direct international routes have been added, mainly to South-East Asia and China.
“This growth was offset by a contraction in domestic demand reflecting the cyclical trend in business travel and general aviation.”
Additionally, Airservices says its own performance continued to improve last month, with ground delay program (GDP) applications at around 10 per cent of December 2023 levels, the lowest since reporting began.
“Airborne delays remained stable, reflecting improved governance around implementing GDPs, along with more favourable weather conditions and ease in business-related demand over December,” the report read.
“Additional air traffic service resilience measures were put in place in preparation for the summer holiday period, including changing overtime rostering practices, minimising training and maintenance activities and having additional staff on call in key locations.
“Delays attributed to Airservices remained a small proportion of total delays (0.1 per cent), without affecting peak passenger demand periods.
“There were only three enroute airspace service variation events in December. Unplanned service variations at towers were minimised, and most regional towers have returned to published hours of coverage.”
The news comes as Melbourne Airport marked its busiest month on record for international traffic in December at 1,147,533 passengers, up 10.6 per cent on the previous year, with Melbourne’s international capacity now at 113 per cent of pre-COVID-19 levels. Around 72 per cent of this capacity is used by foreign carriers.
Almost 2.1 million domestic passengers travelled through the airport last month, up 2.3 per cent on December 2023, with total passengers increasing by 5.1 per cent to 3,243,241.
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