THE Bureau of Infrastructure & Transport Research Economics’ monthly updated noted international scheduled air passenger traffic in August was down 45% on the same period in 2019, with operations “continuing to be severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic”.
However, despite the continued COVID-induced slump, market share began to normalise in August, with Qantas Airways the biggest international service operator during the month.
Qantas’ 16.7% of the market was followed by Singapore Airlines’ 13.2%, Jetstar Airways’ 12.9%, Air New Zealand’s 9.7%, and Emirates’ 8.7%.
Other airlines in the top 10 included Qatar Airways at 5.1%, Scoot with 4.5%, Malaysia Airlines with 2.6%, Fiji Airways with 2.5% and Virgin Australia at 2.3%.
Also in positive news, the “total seats made available” metric improved massively in August compared to the same time last year, with the 2.438 million seats made available utilised at a rate of 82%.
The top five city pairs were Sydney-Singapore, Melbourne-Singapore, Perth-Singapore, Sydney-Auckland and Melbourne-Denpasar, while Sydney had the largest share of passenger numbers at 40.9% followed by Melbourne with 27.9%, Brisbane at 14%, and Perth at 10.5%.
