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Annual Australian domestic passengers have passed 65 million, according to the latest BITRE data.
A total of 65.32 million passengers travelled on Australian domestic commercial flights, including charter operations, in the 12 months to the end of June 2026, up 2.4 per cent on the previous year.
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This includes 60.75 million RPT passengers, up 2.2 per cent on the year ending June 2025, across 602,900 RPT aircraft trips, up 0.3 per cent.
“RPT revenue passenger kilometres (RPKs) performed were 73.26 billion, an increase of 2.3 per cent compared with the year ending June 2025,” BITRE wrote in its Domestic aviation activity 2025-26 report.
“Capacity, measured by available seat kilometres (ASKs), increased by 3.2 per cent compared with the year ending June 2025, to a total of 89.08 billion.
“The industry wide load factor (RPKs/ASKs) decreased from 82.9 per cent in the year ending June 2025 to 82.2 per cent in the year ending June 2026.
“The highest load factor (91.8 per cent) was recorded on the Adelaide-Gold Coast route while the lowest load factor (53.7 per cent) was recorded on the Geraldton-Perth route.”
Sydney-Melbourne remained Australia’s busiest air corridor, with 8.08 million passengers (up 0.3 per cent), followed by Brisbane-Sydney with 4.43 million (up 1.6 per cent) and Brisbane – Melbourne with 3.70 million (up 4.0 per cent).
“In the year ending June 2026, Sydney was Australia’s busiest domestic airport with 25.50 million passenger movements, up 1.2 per cent compared with the year ending June 2025, followed by Melbourne with 24.61 million passenger movements (up 2.1 per cent) and Brisbane with 17.74 million passenger movements (up 2.5 per cent),” BITRE wrote.
“Total cargo movements at Australian airports on domestic RPT flights were 321.9 thousand tonnes in the year ending June 2026, an increase of 0.3 per cent compared to the year ending June 2025.
“In the year ending June 2026, the number of domestic aviation passengers travelling through regional airports was 25.63 million, up 2.0 per cent compared to the year ending June 2025.
“Out of the top 50 regional airports, the strongest increase was recorded at Orange Airport (up 17.1 per cent) while the largest decrease was recorded at Paraburdoo airport (down 17.1 per cent).”
It comes as Australia’s aviation network has seen some recovery from the impact of the Iran conflict, according to Airservices Australia.
In its Australian Aviation Network Overview report for July 2026, Airservices said the Australian aviation industry has entered the 2026–27 financial year with “resilient demand and steady economic conditions despite ongoing global uncertainty”.
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