There’s a buzz around Sydney this weekend, with Taylor Swift performing four sold-out concerts at Accor Stadium between Friday and Monday.
As fans of the American pop star descend on the harbour city, it’s no surprise that flights this weekend are extremely full. In fact, of the approximately 11,000 airline seats available from Melbourne to Sydney, only 23 seats were still available for sale as of early this morning.
53 of today’s 63 Melbourne-Sydney flights were already fully booked as of this morning. Of the remaining ten flights, five had only one seat available for sale at the full Economy or Business Class fare price. Two flights had only two seats left for sale, and two Qantas flights had between 5 and 9 seats remaining for sale. Qantas cancelled one flight, QF432.
It’s a similar story on other routes to and from Sydney. Of today’s 36 scheduled flights from Brisbane to Sydney, all but three are sold out. And 13 of 18 Adelaide-Sydney flights today are fully booked to the very last seat.
In the other direction, 21 of today’s 60 scheduled flights from Sydney to Melbourne are already sold out. Seven flights from Sydney to Brisbane are also sold out, while 8 Sydney-Adelaide flights are completely filled.
Most of today’s flights to Sydney from other cities including Perth, Hobart, Gold Coast and even Auckland also have either very limited or no seats available.
The cost of last-minute airfares
Of the remaining seats available today from Melbourne to Sydney, the cheapest available airfare is $619 for a one-way Economy ticket on Rex. At the time of writing, only two seats were available at this price – and not on the same flights.
Qantas airfares are selling for between $648 (for an Economy Class ticket at 9pm) and $1,630 for a one-way Business Class ticket.
Neither Jetstar nor Virgin Australia have any tickets left for sale at all today from Melbourne to Sydney.
Are airlines taking advantage of Taylor Swift fans?
Well, not exactly.
Of course, airlines will be happy that their planes are so full and that they’re able to sell seats at such high prices. After all, they are for-profit businesses. But airlines are not deliberately going out of their way to rip off concert-goers – nor anyone else who urgently needs to fly to Sydney this weekend.
In fact, some airlines including Qantas, Virgin Australia and Air New Zealand put on extra flights to help get more people to and from Sydney over this weekend. Qantas even ran an Airbus A380 from Melbourne to Sydney last night.
But airlines only have so many planes available for adding extra capacity.
With a limited supply of seats and such high demand, airlines have to increase prices to ensure that there are enough seats for customers who really need to get to Sydney. Otherwise, all of the available seats would have sold out many weeks ago and there would be zero seats available for people who need to urgently book at the last minute.
