Calls for more flights as airline performance lags pre-COVID levels

Sydney Airport boss Geoff Culbert has issued a plea to airlines to increase their international capacity while government data shows the industry’s domestic performance remains below pre-COVID-19 levels. Figures show 3% of scheduled services were cancelled last month and just under 70% of flights arrived and departed on time, according to the Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics. The average number of on-time arrivals and departures for the same period in 2019 was about 82%, with 1.5% of flights cancelled. But Culbert, Sydney Airport’s CE, is focused on increasing the number of international flights. He said the lack of seat capacity into and out of Australia was “constraining growth”, revealing the total passenger traffic in October remained 25.5% lower than the same period in 2019. “To see a sustained recovery in our tourism market and visitor economy we need to unlock more capacity as quickly as we can,” Culbert said on Monday. About 900,000 international passengers passed through Sydney Airport in October, down 35% on the corresponding period in 2019. Sydney Airport’s domestic passenger traffic totalled 2,044,000 over the month, down 20% on the corresponding period in 2019.<br/>