BITRE September 2018 international passenger statistics

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Melburnian1

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BITRE released the above this morning.

While passengers to and from mainland China rose 18 per cent (compared to September 207), Air China only carried 9.4 per cent more into or out of Oz, China Eastern 2.3 and China Southern 8.3 per cent more.

From a much smaller base, Capital Airlines had growth of around 39 per cent, Hainan Airlines 33 per cent while Donghai and Tainjin were not flying to Oz a year ago, but are both relatively small, especially the latter. Xiamen Airlines was up 23 per cent.

QF loads to and from mainland China were only up about 3 per cent while Cathay's decreased to and from the SAR by a similar percentage.

Maybe other carriers such as SQ snagged a few more of these mainland Chinese patrons? The figures do not enable that to be calculated.

Malindo Air grew hugely, up 44 per cent in Sept 2018 against Sept 2017.

China Airlines had 86 per cent growth to Taiwan (and 75 per cent to NZ). I've not been on it (but have on Eva Air) with both not as well known as they ought be to Australians.

AirAsiaX carried 26.5 per cent fewer passengers to or from Malaysia. Irrespective of what Geoffrey Thomas says re safety, this airline remains on my no fly list but that's subjective.

Emirates carried 18 per cent more pasengers to or from UAE given that QF ceased to operate there. However EK's loads to and from NZ were down almost 74 per cent as it instead favoured nonstop DXB to NZ flights.

Darwin continues to lose passengers as an international airport with the Bali route badly down (and Manila PR having ceased). In contrast, Cairns is again growing, though at around 2.5 per cent, not hugely. Perth slightly dropped but with mining again showing signs of confidence, a brighter outlook may be on the way. Melbourne continued to grow strongly, up 9 per cent, while Sydney given its constraints showed impressive 5 per cent Sept 2018 v Sept 2017 growth.

Cebu Pacific experienced more than 55 per cent traffic growth as it began flying to Melbourne thrice weekly in September. The market for MEL - MNL grew markedly compared to Sept 2017. Overall, Philippine Airlines' passenger numbers hardly dropped, suggesting that the new carrier to MEL has increased overall demand rather than just cannibalising other operators' passengers.

Qantas' passenger numbers to and from Hong Kong dropped 9.9 per cent while Virgin Australia's rose 132.9 per cent (latter due to commencement of Sydney toHong Kong VA flights). This does not disclose anything about yields that have probably dropped for all three including CX.

In September, MEL - SIN - MEL became the busiest Oz international route (for passenger numbers), eclipsing SYD - SIN - SIN.

Seat utilisation on Sri Lankan's MEL - CMB flights continues to be good. I don't know what yields are like but this may be one of the more successful launches (in its case, relaunch) of a new route into and out of Oz for some years.

Royal Brunei's passenger numbers were disappointing. It only flies to and from MEL, and at the end of October radically altered its northbound schedule to provide connections to the new nonstop BWN to LHR flight. Previously it was two stops via DXB. The change means no southeast or north Asian same day connections northbound ex MEL, so passengers who previously used it to travel to BKK, HKG or MNL may use competitors.

QF's seat occupancy to and from Santiago (SCL) was excellent. One wonders, subject to yields and equipment availability if QF might at some stage increase frequencies on this route.
 
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In September, MEL - SIN - MEL became the busiest Oz international route (for passenger numbers), eclipsing SYD - SIN - SIN.

This was the one i found particularly interesting - amazing that this is the case, particularly when the major home carrier is SYD-centric ("hub") plus routes QF1/2 via SIN and QF9/10 via PER.

A link for those who cant be bothered using google!

https://bitre.gov.au/publications/ongoing/international_airline_activity-monthly_publications.aspx
 
In September, MEL - SIN - MEL became the busiest Oz international route (for passenger numbers), eclipsing SYD - SIN - SIN.

These days, MEL-SIN-MEL flights do always seem to be quite full for some reason! I guess also, there's been significantly increased QF capacity and slightly increased SQ capacity, but decreased JQ capacity over the twelve month period. Expect it to drop back a little now, as EK is reverting to 777 from A380 on the route.
 
Donghai Airlines had loads of 44% inbound and 27% outbound on the new DRW-SZX route. Ouch.

EK's SYD-CHC route is not going great either.
 
Donghai Airlines had loads of 44% inbound and 27% outbound on the new DRW-SZX route. Ouch....

DRW may fail the test of sufficient population density (at its end) or reasons to visit despite limited airline competition that isn't indirect, but, generally speaking, public transport (including airlines) seems to take a year to get itself sufficiently known to attract maximum numbers.
 
China Airlines had 86 per cent growth to Taiwan (and 75 per cent to NZ). I've not been on it (but have on Eva Air) with both not as well known as they ought be to Australians.
Minor comment on one small part of what you’ve posted; but China Airlines are charging extremely good prices & at least SYD and MEL are serviced by new aircraft with very good interiors. The in-flight catering is awful ex-SYD, ex-TPE & ex-LGW; but it’ll be the pricing that’s increased their business, London in J for $4k return in the middle of their summer holidays on an A359 for example.

As for recognition, though; definitely. People think it’s a “mainland China” airline & avoid it accordingly.
 
DRW may fail the test of sufficient population density (at its end) or reasons to visit despite limited airline competition that isn't indirect, but, generally speaking, public transport (including airlines) seems to take a year to get itself sufficiently known to attract maximum numbers.

It's true that new routes take time, but loads of 27% two months into the service are particularly low. This is only sustainable if the yields are extremely high (which they aren't).
 
It's true that new routes take time, but loads of 27% two months into the service are particularly low. This is only sustainable if the yields are extremely high (which they aren't).

It isn't alone. I recall that PR cancelled the DRW - PER thrice weeklies after three months: I was told one flight (one way) had only 35 or fewer passengers. There will have been other carriers whose routes didn't last.
 
The other interesting stat in all this, is USA load factors where UA has loads at least 7% lower than other competitors with 69% inbound/ 75% outbound vs next lowest VA (76%/82%) with both having similar capacity [and for reference others were higher ... AA (82/87), DL (78/84), HA (83/89), JQ (90/93), QF (84/83)]. Maybe the absence of a loyalty partner in AU, makes it that little bit more difficult to sell seats?
 
DRWs problems don’t stop at Donghai. Loads on JQ to DPS are also down significantly and well below the numbers JQ gets to DPS from other ports.
 
DRWs problems don’t stop at Donghai. Loads on JQ to DPS are also down significantly and well below the numbers JQ gets to DPS from other ports.

Captain, I mentioned the drop in DRW to DPS above.

Do you know why?

As an aside, there have been costly, full page NT Government tourism ads running in 'Herald Sun' in Melbourne. It's off season up there, but is tourism starting to do really badly in the NT?
 
Captain, I mentioned the drop in DRW to DPS above.

Do you know why?

As an aside, there have been costly, full page NT Government tourism ads running in 'Herald Sun' in Melbourne. It's off season up there, but is tourism starting to do really badly in the NT?

Yes I know you did, but loads of ~50 to 60% isn’t sustainable for JQ without the backing of the state.

As to why, it’s economic. The big Inpex gas export project required ~5,000 workers during construction.

They were cashed up and working a four on, four off roster. A 2.5 hour flight to a party town was how many spent their RDOs.

The gas project is moving to production and last I’d heard needed maybe 500 to operate.

Take 4,500 people out of a town the size of DRW it was always going to hurt. That fall in population has hurt the broader DRW economy, property market etc and has led to an overall fall in population.

The pain is felt hardest in areas leveraged to a mostly young male workforce. For example, sporting clubs that once fielded four of five senior teams in local competitions, some can barely get a single team on the field.
 
This was the one i found particularly interesting - amazing that this is the case, particularly when the major home carrier is SYD-centric ("hub") plus routes QF1/2 via SIN and QF9/10 via PER.
This I find interesting. When I'm searching SIN-BNE flights the SIN-MEL-BNE flights and BNE-MEL-SIN flights on QF36/QF35 are usually only $4 more than the direct SIN-BNE and BNE-SIN flights.

It's a no brainer if wanting more SCs but I prefer to go via SYD to drop off golf clubs and pick them up again later but those flights on QF2/QF1 are ~$244 more expensive each way. For some reason Qantas wants to add extra protection on QF1/QF2 as I'm guessing they prefer those travelling all the way to LHR but that flight will also get feeder traffic from other cities.
 
Minor comment on one small part of what you’ve posted; but China Airlines are charging extremely good prices & at least SYD and MEL are serviced by new aircraft with very good interiors. The in-flight catering is awful ex-SYD, ex-TPE & ex-LGW; but it’ll be the pricing that’s increased their business, London in J for $4k return in the middle of their summer holidays on an A359 for example.

As for recognition, though; definitely. People think it’s a “mainland China” airline & avoid it accordingly.

Forg, I am wary of going OT (particularly since I initiated the thread) but CI has received extremely good reviews for its product (including aircraft fitout and catering) as has another carrier with which I am acquainted, PR out of Oz, so I'm surprised that you believe the catering on CI is sub-par.

I've been in the CI lounge at TPE in the last couple of years and found its food (and drink) offerings fine. But I digress.

Maybe CI has to stress it is NOT 'mainland Chinese' with all the negativity that the latter brings to many Australians' minds. As a country, Taiwan is very advanced, possibly ahead of Australia in some aspects like technology.
 
I thought the food was pretty terrible; but wasn’t sure if I was expecting too much of in-flight catering, I’m not a J expert by any stretch of the imagination. But a workmate who’s P1 with QF (ie. flies a lot on plenty of different airlines) was of the same opinion when he flew CI, so it wasn’t just me. :)
The hard product eclipses QF though.

Same deal with the TPE lounge; I was happy enough with the shower setup, which IMHO worked really well, but the food/drink wasn’t as good as QF J domestic (in SYD). And old mate agreed, so it wasn’t just me!

Having said all of that; would fly CI again given the cost. $4k return to the UK & was super happy with the comfort. I’d preload entertainment into the iPad if doing it again, but for Y+ prices it was srsly awesome.
 
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I noticed this at the end of the report:

Screen Shot 2018-12-10 at 8.08.02 AM.png

So I guess this means that Hong Kong Airlines transported 400 "domestic" passengers between OOL-CNS in September. SQ/QR would have transported a combined 106 pax on the SYD-CBR route, and CX 85 from BNE-CNS. I assume all of these passengers must have also flown in and out of Australia on the same airline.
 
I noticed this at the end of the report:

View attachment 146523

So I guess this means that Hong Kong Airlines transported 400 "domestic" passengers between OOL-CNS in September. SQ/QR would have transported a combined 106 pax on the SYD-CBR route, and CX 85 from BNE-CNS. I assume all of these passengers must have also flown in and out of Australia on the same airline.

I believe your assumption is correct.
 
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