BITRE – AVIATION STATISTICS DOMESTIC ANNUAL This page is intentionally left blank. vi
Highlights HIGHLIGHTS There were 61.34 million passengers carried on Australian domestic commercial aviation (including charter operations) in the year ending December 2016, an increase of 2.0 per cent compared with the year ending December 2015. In the year ending December 2016 there were 683 610 aircraft trips, a decrease of 0.3 per cent compared to the previous year. 58.93 million passengers were carried on RPT flights in the year ending December 2016, an increase of 2.5 compared with the year ending December 2015. RPT revenue passenger kilometres (RPKs) performed were 69.33 billion in the year, up 2.2 per cent on the year ending December 2015. Capacity, measured by available seat kilometres (ASKs), increased 0.4 per cent compared with the year ending December 2015, to a total of 89.06 billion. With RPT passenger traffic increasing at a faster rate than capacity, the industry wide load factor (RPKs/ASKs) increased from 76.5 per cent in the year ending December 2015 to 77.8 per cent in the year ending December 2016. Load factors on individual routes increased on 35 of the 62 RPT routes for which data is available in both years. In the year ending December 2016, Melbourne – Sydney remained Australia’s busiest RPT route with 8.90 million passengers, an increase of 3.4 per cent compared with the year ending December 2015. It was followed by Brisbane – Sydney with 4.66 million passengers (up 4.1 per cent) and Brisbane – Melbourne with 3.49 million passengers (up 4.2 per cent). The greatest percentage increase in RPT passenger numbers, compared to the year ending December 2015, was on the Hamilton Island – Sydney route (up 16.0 per cent). There were large increases on a number of other routes, including Ayers Rock (Uluru) – Sydney (up 15.5 per cent), Brisbane – Hamilton Island (up 13.1 per cent), Hobart – Sydney (up 12.9 per cent) and Sunshine Coast – Sydney (up 12.0 per cent). RPT routes with traffic decreases in the year ending December 2016, compared with the year ending December 2015, included Brisbane – Gladstone (down 18.3 per cent), Karratha – Perth (down 18.1 per cent), Brisbane – Moranbah (down 15.4 per cent) and Perth – Port Hedland (down 13.1 per cent). In the year ending December 2016, Sydney remained Australia’s busiest domestic airport with 26.93 million passenger movements, followed by Melbourne with 24.78 million passenger movements and Brisbane with 17.08 million passenger movements. Total cargo movements at Australian airports on domestic RPT flights were 435.7 thousand tonnes in the year ending December 2016, an increase of 20.5 per cent compared to the year ending December 2015. In the year ending December 2016, the number of domestic aviation passengers travelling through regional airports was 24.04 million, 1.3 per cent higher than for the year ending December 2015. Out of the top 50 regional airports, the strongest growth was at Wellcamp airport (up 71.7 per cent on year ending December 2015), while the largest decrease was at Roma airport (down 41.1 per cent on year ending December 2015). Fixed-wing charter operators carried 2.41 million passengers in the year ending December 2016, a decrease of 8.1 per cent compared with the year ending December 2015. Perth airport accounted for 38.8 per cent of all charter passengers in Australia. 1
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