Why is February a slow travel month?

[jetpack]

I was looking at some stats on Melbourne Airport here and couldn't help but notice that February is by far the slowest travel month of the year. It seems to be replicated across Australian airports. Other than being the last month of summer I couldn't come up with a logical explanation for it. Anyone have any ideas?

 

[n7of9]

Too soon to xmas/school holidays/public holidays to feel the 'need' for personal travel? Corporates still recovering from the January lull before workstreams amp up for the year?

 

[Denali]

After Chrissy, school holidays and Australia Day, before Easter and its winter in Europe so lots of my people not in a rush to travel there.

 

[TheInsider]

Less days in the month, although not to make it drop that dramatically.

 

[equus]

Less days in the month

Looks like that is the major factor. If you allow for that (and also consider the ratio of week days to weekend days is different due to less days), then in some years, May looks like lower per day than February. The linked graph is not based from zero, so artificially exaggerates the apparent differences.

 

[JohnK]

As mentioned in between Christmas and Easter. Also school children have started their new year.

February would be a good time to travel to Thailand for airfares but accommodation still on the high side.

 

[Ewing]

I can't speak for others, but traditionally February and June are the busiest months for me in the office so it's really hard to justify travel.

February is ramping up from the Christmas break, and June is everyone going mad trying to expend budgets before EOFY.

If there's ever a month of the year where I don't step on a plane - it's February. I had zero flights in February this year, and last year as well.

 

[UP4014]

Straight after school holidays and it is a short month. A few days can make a big dollar difference. Take QF revenue of $16.1B per year. 3 days of that is $132,328,000, when you talk big numbers even small percentages are big numbers so a short month makes a difference.

 

[Renato1]

February is the best beach month of the year in Melbourne - why would anyone want to go to other Australian or Asian beach resorts?

The same reasoning I think would also apply to Perth, Adelaide and Hobart.
Regards,
Renato

 

[Forg]

I thought December through April were pretty travelly ... there are school, uni, public holidays etc & half the time if you take 3-4 days off work you can get an entire week. Plus it’s summery everywhere.

I thought it was that time between Easter & the Queen’s Birthday long weekend (in late June) that everyone was at work. Maybe everyone being at work actually means more travel? It’s Sydney’s worst traffic time for what I thought was that reason.