Sydney Airport reports that passenger numbers continued to rise in October with strong growth in domestic services at 3.3% and a rise of 1.7% in international passengers compared to last year.
 
Airport management said that load factors improved with a 2.1% increase on domestic routes, reaching the highest levels seen in three years, while domestic carriers delivered higher capacity in response to ‘healthy demand for Australian domestic travel’.
 
International passenger demand remained strong as load factors improved an impressive 3%. Airport management added that China, Malaysia and Philippine arrivals grew particularly strongly in October at +24.2%, +17.2% and +14.6% respectively.
 
The airport is also expecting a significant boost in Chinese passenger traffic following the Australian Government’s recent expansion of economic cooperation with China, including the signing of a free trade agreement.
 
Nevertheless, New Zealand cross Tasman traffic still accounts for the largest foreign nationality market, with passengers rising by 5.4% in October. Seven airlines now offer direct flights from Sydney Airport to five cities, including Auckland, Christchurch, Wellington, Queenstown and Rotorua.
 
Total international departing and arriving traffic in the first 10 months amounted to 10.7m, up 2.9% on the 10.4m passengers in the same period last year.
 
The top 10 passenger nationalities using the airport in the current year to date were Australians (+1.4%); New Zealanders (+0.9%); Chinese (+15.4%); UK (-1.5%); US (+5.0%); Japanese (+1.5%); Koreans (+2.7%); Indians (13.0%); Malaysians (+14.0%); and Germans (+1.1%).