Sydney airport passenger traffic bounces off low

Market: Oil products
19/11/21

Passenger traffic in October at Australia's busiest airport Sydney rebounded from a low the previous month, with increased flows on domestic routes despite the city spending most of the month in a Covid-19 lockdown.

October saw 65,000 passengers use the airport, which was the highest since the 102,000 in July, operator Sydney Airport said.

Domestic use was the highest since the 69,000 passengers that travelled in July. But international passengers remained unchanged from September.

Passenger numbers are expected to rise further in November as international borders were open to fully Covid-19 vaccinated Australian citizens and permanent residents from 1 November. Air travel between Australia's two largest cities Sydney and Melbourne reopened on 5 November.

Provisional data for 1-15 November indicates international passenger traffic was down by about 95pc and domestic traffic down by around 87pc on the corresponding pre-pandemic period in 2019.

By Kevin Morrison

Sydney airport passenger traffic								('000)
	Oct '21	Sep '21	Oct '20	year to Oct '21	year to Oct '20	YTD '21 vs YTD '20 % ±	year to Oct '19	YTD '21 vs YTD '19 % ±

Domestic	46	23	187	5,816	6,484	-10.3	22,812	-74.5
International	19	19	38	415	3,707	-88.8	13,937	-97.0
Total	65	42	225	6,231	10,191	-38.9	36,749	-83.0
Source: Sydney Airport

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