Airline load factors to/from Australia for March 2018

[Mattg]

I've just had a look through the latest international airline load factors to/from Australia for March 2018, as published by the BITRE: International Airline Activity—Monthly Publications

The stats break down the average outbound & inbound load factors (% of seats filled with passengers) by airline and country. There were a few stats for March that I found interesting. March isn't normally the busiest month for international travel, but a few airlines did very well while others had very low seat utilisation.

These airlines did very well:

• Emirates NZ-Australia 96%
• American Airlines Australia-USA 94%
• Japan Airlines Australia-Japan 97%
• Qantas Australia-Chile 97% in both directions
• Qantas South Africa-Australia 94%

There were also some figures that I found surprisingly low:

• Etihad UAE-Austarlia 56% (Australia-UAE 69%)
• Virgin Australia USA-Australia 58% (Australia-USA 63%)
• Hong Kong Airlines Hong Kong-Australia 48%
• Jetstar China-Australia 41% (Australia-China 49%)
• Qatar Airways Qatar-Austarlia 53% (but Australia-Qatar was 84%)
• Virgin Australia Papua New Guinea-Australia 40% (32% for Austarlia-PNG)
• Batik Air Indonesia-Australia 34% (Australia-Indonesia is 45%)

 

[TomJones]

Thanks for going through the numbers for us Matt
Lots of really interesting bits and pieces you posted.

I had no idea that the QF Chile flights got such massive loads. I always thought that if it was only 3x per week, it was just breaking even for them. I wonder if we'll be seeing an increase in frequency at some stage.

The other thing that really sticks out to me is the difference between QR's inbound and outbound load factors- over 50% greater loads on outbound flights! I'd be interested to hear if someone could shed some light onto what's going on here.

 

[NZflygirl]

Bring back Emirates on the Tasman! Although March was when they were leaving the route so might have been everyone getting their last minute flights in!

I flew after they left the route on a little Qantas 737. Midday flight and it was so full they said they were boarding by rows. I don't even think they called priority boarding. Absolutely full! I have had some flights on Qantas in the past where I had a row to myself to lie down or a middle seat free. I was wondering if that was all going to disappear with the downgrade in capacity across the ditch with Emirates leaving.

I did talk to one of the flight attendants on Emirates A380 in business before they left and they said business class in general was fairly empty. I did notice that more from the Auckland direction towards Australia. Otherwise I thought economy did reasonably well. Obviously a bit less during off peak season.

 

[moa999]

Interesting the loads on QF South America.
Maybe they will go A380 when they ditch the final 747s.

The choice of 380 v 787 is a tough one for these routes..
Current 4/week on 380 or say daily on 787 is about the same seatcount

 

[docjames]

Don’t forget March includes start of Easter and start of Easter school holidays so some outbound may be better loaded then the same dates inbound (and vv in April).

 

[Mattg]

Interesting to note that Hong Kong Airlines just announced it will withdraw from Australia. With inbound loads below 50% and yields also low, it's little wonder!

Thanks for going through the numbers for us Matt
Lots of really interesting bits and pieces you posted.

I had no idea that the QF Chile flights got such massive loads. I always thought that if it was only 3x per week, it was just breaking even for them. I wonder if we'll be seeing an increase in frequency at some stage.

The other thing that really sticks out to me is the difference between QR's inbound and outbound load factors- over 50% greater loads on outbound flights! I'd be interested to hear if someone could shed some light onto what's going on here.

Qantas now flies 4x weekly to SCL, although based on current loads they could probably afford to add a fifth flight! BTW, inbound loads in January were even stronger at 98.4%! Interestingly, LATAM's loads were only 68% in January and 71% in March. This does not account for passengers that leave the SCL-AKL-SYD service in AKL, but I still would have thought it would be higher.

In terms of differences in inbound/outbound loads, most airlines have slightly higher outbound loads in March. This is probably due to school holiday timing, as mentioned above, and is a seasonal thing. The opposite occurs in some months. But the QR difference is particularly large. An exception to this rule QF's inbound loads from JNB to SYD which are almost always higher than the SYD-JNB loads, regardless of the month.

 

[suze2000]

Most people on RTW fares prefer to fly in a Westerly direction. Perhaps that has something to do with it?

 

[JohnK]

Most people on RTW fares prefer to fly in a Westerly direction. Perhaps that has something to do with it?

And there's always an exception. I prefer to go USA, Europe and then a possible stopover in SE Asia before coming home.

 

[Himeno]

Interesting to note that Hong Kong Airlines just announced it will withdraw from Australia. With inbound loads below 50% and yields also low, it's little wonder!

They also can't fly to the major ports because CX has taken all the slots allowed between HKG and PER/SYD/MEL/BNE under the air service agreement. People might not know that OOL is fairly close to BNE, etc.