Australia’s domestic flights were a touch fuller in March as passenger numbers grew amid a decrease in capacity.
Figures from the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE) showed there were 4.83 million domestic travellers on regular public transport flights in March, up 0.8 per cent from the prior corresponding period.
Meanwhile, local carriers reduced the number of available seats by 0.3 per cent in the month, resulting in load factors rising 1.1 percentage points to 75.9 per cent.
“Load factors on individual routes increased on 33 of the 61 RPT routes for which data is available in both years,” the BITRE report said.
Australia’s busiest route Melbourne-Sydney recorded a seven per cent increase in passenger numbers, with 768,124 travellers flying between the nation’s two largest capital cities.
However, with Melbourne-Sydney capacity measured by available seats up 10 per cent in the month, load factors were down 2.3 percentage points to 83.6 per cent.
The BITRE report also offered an indication of the ongoing softness of the resources sector, with the number of domestic charter flights declining 7.5 per cent to 4,044 in March, while total passengers on charter flights dropped 2.5 per cent to 210,099. The BITRE report said the data did not include helicopter and leisure charter flights.
