New data from BITRE shows that the number of passengers who travelled domestically in 2009 was the same as the previous year despite a marginal rise during the month of December.
During December 4.29 million passengers were carried domestically, which was a 1.1 per cent increase over the same time during the previous year. Revenue passenger kilometres performed were 4.91 billion for the month, up 0.5 per cent, while capacity was down by 0.9 per cent. As a result, industry load factor increased marginally to 79.6 per cent.
Year end statistics show that a total of 50.46 million passengers travelled domestically for the 2009 calendar year, the same as in 2008, demonstrating strong resilience during the global financial crisis. RPKs for the year increased by 0.2 per cent while ASKs were down by 2.1 per cent, which resulted in a 1.8 per cent increase in load factor to 79.7 per cent. The number of aircraft trips decreased by 1.9 per cent for the year.
For the year, the biggest increase in traffic was on the Adelaide-Gold Coast route which saw a 32.3 per cent increase in passenger traffic, followed by Melbourne-Mildura (+19 per cent) and Cairns-Townsville (13.6 per cent). The biggest decreases were felt on Kalgoorlie-Perth (-20.1 per cent), Cairns-Melbourne (-19.1 per cent) and Darwin-Melbourne (-11.5 per cent).
