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