Article: Have Australians Stopped Flying to the USA? Here’s What the Data Says…

[AFF Editor]

Canonical URL

https://www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au/australians-flying-to-usa-2025/

Have passenger numbers between Australia and the USA gone down in 2025? The data says "no" - or at least, not yet.

Details here:

Have Australians Stopped Flying to the USA? Here's What the Data Says...

Despite many anecdotal reports, the real-world data tells us that Australians are still flying to the USA. In fact, Australia-USA passenger numbers are up 4% compared to 2024. But that doesn't tell the whole story, and there's one particularly surprising trend.

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

 

[aikman]

Didn't Qantas just a few weeks ago put LA on sale for $999? I remember thinking why it was cheaper than Tokyo. Anyway that says it all really.

 

[justinbrett]

Didn't Qantas just a few weeks ago put LA on sale for $999? I remember thinking why it was cheaper than Tokyo. Anyway that says it all really.

And they sold out within hours, according to reports on AFF. Those kinds of sales existed before Covid too.

As of now (no sale), QF SYD-LAX is around 1.6K, SYD-HND is around 1.4K, so there’s not much in it. A lot more competition on the USA routes.

 

[levelnine]

The headline and entire premise of the article are wrong. It asks if Australians have stopped flying to the US, but presents data that does not breakdown by nationality.

The United States Government provides break downs of incoming tourist arrivals by nationality.

The data shows that total Australian tourist arrivals (this includes visa waiver program arrivals) into the US are down 3.5% year to date compared to 2024:

 

[levelnine]

The year to date figure also masks increasing weakness.

Monthly arrivals were up in January & February compared to the same months in 2024, but have been down by considerable amounts recently: 8% in August, 7% in July & 10.2% in June

 

[justinbrett]

US trade have an online tool to analyse the data.

It supports all of the above data, Australian arrivals are down slightly (more so in recent months) but quite a significant increase in US citizens arriving in Australia. It does show an increase of Australians departing the US.

The only caveat I believe this is all foreigners departing Australia vs Australians arriving from anywhere in the world, so the numbers won’t completely match but are a good indicator.

U.S. International Air Travel Statistics (I-92 data)

Dive into U.S. International Air Travel Statistics - I-92 Data! CBP and NTTO provide these air travel statistics to the government and travel industry.

www.trade.gov

 

[Himeno]

The United States Government provides break downs of incoming tourist arrivals by nationality.

There has been concerns that the US gov has been inflating numbers because they don't want to admit that tourism is down, despite the reality shown on the ground in the vast majority of tourist hot spots all over the US.
There are media reports in the US that tourist numbers are the same or only slightly down on last year, even while states and local tourist boards are begging for people to visit.

 

[Gromit]

levelnine should have written the article. The article is using flawed data compared to the article headline. The data was readily available but the author choose to use data that was at best ambigious or misleading.

 

[justinbrett]

There has been concerns that the US gov has been inflating numbers because they don't want to admit that tourism is down, despite the reality shown on the ground in the vast majority of tourist hot spots all over the US.
There are media reports in the US that tourist numbers are the same or only slightly down on last year, even while states and local tourist boards are begging for people to visit.

Who exactly are alleging the US government are fraudulently reporting statistics?

Vegas reported an 8.8% drop in tourists for September - which seems about right. Of course it’s hard to get an accurate split between international and domestic tourists outside of an airport setting. Hawaii is reporting a drop of 8.1% for the month of September.

From where I’m sitting the numbers seem accurate.

 

[RooFlyer]

levelnine should have written the article. The article is using flawed data compared to the article headline. The data was readily available but the author choose to use data that was at best ambigious or misleading.

The article headline contains a question first (one which is very topical), not an assertion.

Have Australians Stopped Flying to the USA? Here’s What the Data Says…
It links to the raw data (BITRE) so people can check what's being written about, and makes commentary on the flaws of the analysis using that data.



Instead of just bagging the article, why not tell us the correct story?

 

[Major]

Between January and August 2024, 778,802 people flew from the USA to Australia. Over the same period, 792,839 people flew in the other direction from Australia to the USA. This effectively means that 14,037 people left Australia for the USA during that period but didn’t return, which could indicate that they permanently migrated from Australia to the United States.

Does this include those people who then flew to Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean or to Europe ?

 

[Gromit]

The article headline contains a question first (one which is very topical), not an assertion.

Have Australians Stopped Flying to the USA? Here’s What the Data Says…
It links to the raw data (BITRE) so people can check what's being written about, and makes commentary on the flaws of the analysis using that data.

Instead of just bagging the article, why not tell us the correct story?

why ask the question in the headline and then proceed to use data that doesn't answer the question. If no data was around that could answer the question then I could understand, but the data is available and has been published by many others that answers the question.

Edit: You can use sites like U.S. International Air Travel Statistics (I-92 data) to get a break down by country and by US and non Us citizens. Thus showing a clear decline in AU numbers with an increase in US numbers.

 

[jane blogs]

I returned from the US this week and I can say that my outward flight, QF was full as in fact were all my flights with various airlines. However I purchased a one way ticket and then did the same coming home via Asia as it was much more cost effective. I’m sure there would be plenty of other travellers like me who dont wish to give QF the outrageous sums they are still charging for trans Pacific services. This would also skew the stats.

 

[levelnine]

There has been concerns that the US gov has been inflating numbers because they don't want to admit that tourism is down, despite the reality shown on the ground in the vast majority of tourist hot spots all over the US.
There are media reports in the US that tourist numbers are the same or only slightly down on last year, even while states and local tourist boards are begging for people to visit.

Even if that were correct (and I'm not saying it is), all it would show is that the article is even more misleading than it already is, because Australian visitor numbers are even lower.

 

[RooFlyer]

why ask the question in the headline and then proceed to use data that doesn't answer the question. If no data was around that could answer the question then I could understand, but the data is available and has been published by many others that answers the question.

Edit: You can use sites like U.S. International Air Travel Statistics (I-92 data) to get a break down by country and by US and non Us citizens. Thus showing a clear decline in AU numbers with an increase in US numbers.

Unless you are taking the headline literally, "stopped flying" I don't think you are right. The headline reflects a pervasive feeling that tourism at least to the USA has dropped because of Trumpian boarders.

Above, there have been links to US I-92 data, US I-94 data and questions about the veracity of such data. I think you need to show us how the data in the article doesn't reflect what's in the BITRE (Australian) reports and/or why the BITRE data is incorrect.

 

[levelnine]

Unless you are taking the headline literally, "stopped flying" I don't think you are right. The headline reflects a pervasive feeling that tourism at least to the USA has dropped because of Trumpian boarders.

It's also in the very first sentence of the article: 'There have been plenty of anecdotal reports of fewer people travelling to the United States in 2025, compared to previous years. But is this actually true for Australians?'

 

[wirvine]

The number of passengers travelling between USA/Canada and Australia is greatly affected by people joining a cruise hence not returning from USA or Canada

 

[Himeno]

Who exactly are alleging the US government are fraudulently reporting statistics?

Canadians Also that the US media is trying to avoid reporting falls in tourist numbers.

Travel data to the US can also be misleading because the US doesn't have international transit and everyone transiting to another country is counted as having arrived in the US.

 

[justinbrett]

I think just the title and the first paragraph needs to be change. The bulk of the article is correct in that pax numbers on US routes are healthy, it’s just that Americans are making up a greater share of the pax.

Canadians Also that the US media is trying to avoid reporting falls in tourist numbers.

Travel data to the US can also be misleading because the US doesn't have international transit and everyone transiting to another country is counted as having arrived in the US.

Specifically which.Canadians? Link?

 

[redbatz]

I have been sooo wanting to go back to Hawaii for years, but with the price of accommodation, the stupid "resort fees" and the low $Aussie, cant justify the price - and probably same for many others. Not that its losing appeal - its becoming unaffordable.