Sydney Airport warns local carriers to increase flights or risk hurting recovery

Sydney Airport has warned Australia’s carriers to unlock more capacity quickly or risk hampering the recovery of our tourism, education and export industries. More than 3m passengers passed through Sydney Airport in December, the first time since before the country shut its borders due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but the airport’s traffic remains 20% lower on the same time in 2019. The airport’s chief Geoff Culbert welcomed the milestone but said there is still a significant amount of work to be done to rebuild Australia’s travel industry. “Our domestic terminals were bustling over the Christmas period as Australians travelled to see friends and family and explore this great country. The recovery is by no means over though, with 411,000 fewer domestic passengers in December 2022 than in December 2019. International passenger traffic is still well behind pre-pandemic levels due to lower flight numbers. There were 1,157,000 international passengers who passed through the airport in December 2022, more than three times the number in December last year but still almost 30% lower than 2019.<br/>