Melburnian1
Enthusiast
- Joined
- Jun 7, 2013
- Posts
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The latest BITRE statistics for the year to April 2019 show anaemic passenger growth with a tiny rise of 0.6 per cent nationwide in domestic air passengers.
Of the top 10 routes by passenger numbers, only Melbourne - Perth (3.7 per cent) showed any sort of reasonable growth.
Australia's population growth is about 1.5 per cent per annum, so a rise of 0.6 per cent is going backwards in per capita terms.
One reason may be the slowing of growth in mainland Chinese tourism, as AJ of QF is on record suggesting that each of these visitors makes two to three single domestic trips by air.
By far the busiest route, Melbourne - Sydney had a decline of 0.2 per cent in annual numbers.
The poor performance of the 11th busiest route, Brisbane - Cairns shows how tourism to the latter is suffering (although adverse weather may have played a part) as passenger numbers dropped 5.7 per cent. However BNE - TSV was up 2.8 per cent in the year to April 2019.
I haven't compared April 2019's "increase" to April 2018 because last year part of Easter was in March: this year, all in April, so neither month as a one off is a good comparison.
The large airports, known for their price gouging of passengers, must be worried at this lack of increase in passenger numbers even though each international air passenger returns far more in taxes and fees than a domestic air passenger.
And if we had fast, reliable and comfortable high speed rail between Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney, Newcastle, Coffs Harbour, Gold Coast and Brisbane, the decrease of 0.2 per cent would turn into a flood of passengers abandoning the airlines.
Of the top 10 routes by passenger numbers, only Melbourne - Perth (3.7 per cent) showed any sort of reasonable growth.
Australia's population growth is about 1.5 per cent per annum, so a rise of 0.6 per cent is going backwards in per capita terms.
One reason may be the slowing of growth in mainland Chinese tourism, as AJ of QF is on record suggesting that each of these visitors makes two to three single domestic trips by air.
By far the busiest route, Melbourne - Sydney had a decline of 0.2 per cent in annual numbers.
The poor performance of the 11th busiest route, Brisbane - Cairns shows how tourism to the latter is suffering (although adverse weather may have played a part) as passenger numbers dropped 5.7 per cent. However BNE - TSV was up 2.8 per cent in the year to April 2019.
I haven't compared April 2019's "increase" to April 2018 because last year part of Easter was in March: this year, all in April, so neither month as a one off is a good comparison.
The large airports, known for their price gouging of passengers, must be worried at this lack of increase in passenger numbers even though each international air passenger returns far more in taxes and fees than a domestic air passenger.
And if we had fast, reliable and comfortable high speed rail between Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney, Newcastle, Coffs Harbour, Gold Coast and Brisbane, the decrease of 0.2 per cent would turn into a flood of passengers abandoning the airlines.
