Sydney Airport has reported international traffic up +8.3% to 1.286m in August compared to the same month last year, while year-to-date first eight-month numbers rose 7.6% to 10.4m.

 

The airport’s Managing Director and CEO Kerrie Mather described the result as ‘fantastic’, alongside domestic passenger growth of 1.9% in August.

 

She said: “The international result was driven by 5.9% capacity growth and 1.6 percentage point increase in average load factors.”

 

SIGNIFICANT NEW INTERNATIONAL ROUTES

Mather added: “Sydney welcomes United Airlines’ announcement that it will commence a daily Houston-Sydney service from 20 January 2018. The new service will provide an important connection with the largest city in the southern United States and a significant business and transport hub. In addition, this service will connect Sydney to more than 70 cities in key US, Canadian and Latin American destinations.”

 

Mather said she was also pleased that Emirates has announced its fourth daily Airbus A380 service to Dubai, commencing 25 March 2018. She added: “This new service will represent an incremental 357,000 seats compared to their current schedule and will operate in the afternoon off-peak period, providing convenient early morning arrival connections to many European destinations.

 

 

“In addition, Qantas announced the extension of their Osaka service to operate year-round, commencing December 2017. The direct flights will operate three times per week on an Airbus A330, adding 67,000 seats annually to the route.

 

“These airline announcements take our net seat capacity additions to well over 1.5 million year to date, commencing progressively over the coming months.”