Domestic passenger numbers: no growth since 2019

[Melburnian1]

The Federal Government's BITRE issued its August 2026 domestic airline passenger numbers statistics today.

No growth since pre-COVID 2019.

Do we ascribe this to a slowly rising takeup of Zoom and other online meetings, a poorly performing economy with (as of an hour ago) five RBA cash rate rises, private sector investment being 'crowded out' by record public sector spending or other factors?

Australia's population continues to rise each year but air travel numbers, while variable from month to month, mostly have (at least slightly) decreased per capita.

Here's a summary from BITRE:

https://www.bitre.gov.au/resource/aviation/domestic-aviation-activity

5.41 million passengers were carried on Australian domestic commercial aviation (including charter operations) in August 2026 compared with 5.42 million in August 2025 (down 0.1%). This is a decrease of 0.3% on pre-COVID August 2019 passenger numbers (5.43 million).

5.02 million passengers were carried on RPT flights in August 2026 (excluding charter operations), a decrease of 0.8% compared with August 2025.

In August 2026 there were 48.9 thousand RPT aircraft trips, a decrease of 3.6% on August 2025.

For the year ending August 2026 there were 60.69 million RPT passengers, an increase of 1.5% on the year ending August 2025.

RPT revenue passenger km (RPKs) performed were 6.11 billion for the month, compared with 6.13 billion in August 2025 (down 0.3%).

Capacity, measured by available seat km (ASKs) decreased to 7.23 billion in August 2026 compared with 7.45 billion in August 2025 (down 2.9%).

The industry-wide load factor (RPKs/ASKs) increased from 82.2% in August 2025 to 84.5% in August 2026.

 

[AuSammy]

One data point only:

In a part of the late nineties I was flying minimum 5 often 7+ sectors per week for business.

After I left and conference calls became more common and remote access programs and terminal equipment technology improved, my successors travel was slashed markedly.

Following covid and the upswell of zoom et al the current occupant has no travel budget at all except a small allocation of taxis vouchers (for when on the rare occasion he is not working from home). AFAIAA He still has staff in 3-4 domestic cities and one overseas.

 

[eastwest101]

The Federal Government's BITRE issued its August 2026 domestic airline passenger numbers statistics today.

No growth since pre-COVID 2019.

Do we ascribe this to a slowly rising takeup of Zoom and other online meetings, a poorly performing economy with (as of an hour ago) five RBA cash rate rises, private sector investment being 'crowded out' by record public sector spending or other factors?

Australia's population continues to rise each year but air travel numbers, while variable from month to month, mostly have (at least slightly) decreased per capita.

Here's a summary from BITRE:

https://www.bitre.gov.au/resource/aviation/domestic-aviation-activity

5.41 million passengers were carried on Australian domestic commercial aviation (including charter operations) in August 2026 compared with 5.42 million in August 2025 (down 0.1%). This is a decrease of 0.3% on pre-COVID August 2019 passenger numbers (5.43 million).

5.02 million passengers were carried on RPT flights in August 2026 (excluding charter operations), a decrease of 0.8% compared with August 2025.

In August 2026 there were 48.9 thousand RPT aircraft trips, a decrease of 3.6% on August 2025.

For the year ending August 2026 there were 60.69 million RPT passengers, an increase of 1.5% on the year ending August 2025.

RPT revenue passenger km (RPKs) performed were 6.11 billion for the month, compared with 6.13 billion in August 2025 (down 0.3%).

Capacity, measured by available seat km (ASKs) decreased to 7.23 billion in August 2026 compared with 7.45 billion in August 2025 (down 2.9%).

The industry-wide load factor (RPKs/ASKs) increased from 82.2% in August 2025 to 84.5% in August 2026.

I think it's a variety of factors as the post alludes to. No doubt that the COVID pandemic definitely stopped interstate and international travel, with the response by airlines being the destruction of capacity and downsizing of airline workforces. When travel resumed, they had neither the hard capacity or soft capacity to recover, as they had lost a lot of experience and expertise; new aircraft deliveries ran behind schedule with production delays and aircraft cost blowouts. and technical problems and groundings of various families of aircraft and/or shortages of engines.

Certainly no doubt that Zoom/Teams and online work patterns and outsourcing reduced travel expenditure as well. Possibly a bit of an ageing population story as well as the nation has gotten older and less propensity to travel for leisure as people diverted their travel spend from flying and hotels into expensive 4WDs and caravans, locking them into a cycle of more driving holidays to justify the cost of the aforementioned 4WDs and caravans.

Smaller aircraft, higher frequency and higher load factors must have improved yields, and you could hardly say the landscape within Australia for aviation has been competitive, so there might be a perception of flying as becoming more of an expensive luxury than it was pre-Covid. The high barriers of entry are a bit of a deterrent for new entrants. The cost of fuel post-invasion of Ukraine and general inflation of all goods, wages and services post Covid obviously have become baked in to the current airlines' cost structures; if they aren't baked in, then the airline often goes broke.