A new report by the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE)
predicts that passenger numbers across Australia’s capital city airports will more than double by 2030.
According to the forecast, by the 2029/2030 financial year, the number of people transiting through capital city airports is expected to grow by 140 per cent to 235 million. However, the greater use of larger capacity aircraft will see the number of flights increase by only 70 per cent to 1.7 million movements.
By airport, biggest annual growth will be at Brisbane which is expected to grow by an annual rate of 4.9 per cent to 51.2 million passengers by the 2029/2030 financial year. This is followed by Perth (4.7 per cent), Darwin (4.4 per cent), Melbourne (4.2 per cent), Sydney (4.0 per cent, while Adelaide, Canberra and Hobart airports will all grow at 3.5 per cent per annum.
BITRE expects that this will be primarily driven through international traffic, which is expected to grow annually by 5.3 per cent compared to 4 and 3.5 per cent on inter-capital and regional routes respectively. This is in line with recent data which shows strong growth on international routes, as well as sustained growth for domestic routes.
