BITRE international aviation statistics April 2019

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Melburnian1

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BITRE's April 2019 international passenger, freight and mail statistics for aviation show that Sydney Airport's market share was exactly 40 per cent for international passengers while Melbourne's continues to creep up, at 26.7 per cent.

So with 66.7 per cent using one or the other, basically two in every three international passengers use just two airports in Oz.

At the other end of the scale, Avalon handled 1.1 per cent of passengers with its 60 inbound and 60 outbound AirAsia X (D7) KUl - AVV and v.v. twice daillies, but did so with only 0.7 per cent of national aircraft movements. This is logical because a number of other airfields play host to some smaller planes for international flights when compared with D7's consistent use of 377 seat A333s.

March and April are not great months to discern trends due to how Easter moves around, but interestingly MEL's inbound passenger traffic in April 2019 rose only 0.4 per cent compared with April 2018. This indicates that the mainland Chinese market has really started to cool off.

There's been a perception that QF is substantially increasing its market share but overall, this only rose 0.2 per cent (to 17.9 per cent) while JQ's decreased 0.6 per cent to 8.5 per cent. Emirates' share declined from 7.3 to 6.6 per cent while competitor Singapore Airlines' market share for passengers rose from 7.8 to 8.4 per cent. The latter rise of 12.5 per cent in April 2019 passenger numbers to and from SIN for SQ is surprising (although some reflects Easter/school hols) because I don't recall SQ having particularly increased its flights to and from Oz recently.

MH's market share rose from 2.2 to 2.6 per cent, so one might argue that any MH17/MH370 adverse effect is a past difficulty, although MH may have had to sacrifice decent yields per available or occupied seat to gain this extra market share.

For the month compared to April a year ago, passenger numbers rose 4.2 per cent - the Easter effect - but the number of seats made available by all international airlines (in total) declined 0.8 per cent. Freight and mail carried both dropped between 6.5 and 7 per cent: while some may be due to Easter (fewer business days), it's another indication of relatively weak demand.

Donghai Airlines (DZ) continued to be the smallest carrier in terms of passengers with just 491 in total (counting onbound and outbound for SZX - DRW - SZX) carried in April 2019. How this airline can be increasing its frequency is beyond me. NT tourism (like the NT economy) is in a fair bit of trouble.

TG's passenger numbers to and from Oz dropped 22.3 per cent comparing the two Aprils, reflecting flight frequency cuts. Those of us of a certain age may recall that back in the 1980s TG was one of the leading carriers to and from Oz, with a high public profile. No more. I never see any advertising from it, and it doesn't always use its most modern aircraft on every Oz route.

QF's passenger numbers to and from Indonesia rose 124.2 per cent, showing how its flights to Bali have boosted passenger numbers, particularly since the SYD - DPS route has an A332. However its numbers to and from HKG declined 5.9 per cent. VA's numbers carried in total to or from HKG rose 129.1 per cent as it introduced SYD - HKG flights, while CX's numbers (again, a surprise) rose 10.9 per cent.

VA's seat occupancy inbound from HKG was 80.6 per cent while outbound was 81.1 per cent, again probably the Easter/school holidays helping to increase it in 2019, but also good because the Sydney flights were then arguably not established. I like to give airlines 12 months to achieve consumer and agent recognition of new flight routes. CX's seat occupancies were 89.5 and 94.1 per cent respectively while QF's were 89 and 93 per cent inbound/outbound on the HKG route.

This doesn't disclose anything about yields on the HKG routes that outside of peaks like Easter and school holidays seem to be under much pressure if the airline sales are any realistic indication.

5J's number of passengers carried rose 86 per cent due to it introducing three weekly flights between MNL and MEL. It crams passengers in with 436 all Y seats on an A333. PR and QF passenger numbers to MNL both rose: this is one of the fastest growing destinations.

In contrast CA's passenger numbers to and from communist China plummeted 33.5 cent as it had reduced flight frequencies compared to April 2018. OD's passenger numbers in and out of Oz rose 177.9 per cent as it added at least one new destination. LATAM's numbers to and from Chile rose 36.1 per cent.

The number of passengers CI carries across the Tasman on its tag flights are not huge but these rose 25.7 per cent. It would be great if it would reintroduce a tag flight from MEL to AKL or CHC as this would increase competition, and CI (despite safety problems over the years) is arguably an impressive carrier in 2019.

JQ's numbers to and from SIN decreased almost 30 per cent, reflecting QF's mainline's increased emphasis on own metal flying to this important destination. As AFFer MEL_Traveller keeps reminding us, JQ7/JQ8 (twice weekly MEL - SIn - MEL) are unreliable and often cancelled.

Growth in passenger numbers to and from the 'top 10' cities was far lower than to and from lower ranked ones. DXB even showed a small decline, the QF effect of pulling out.

Some small airlines like Batik Air and Tianjin had significant decreases in passengers carried to and from Oz.

May may give us a better picture of the true state of international passenger traffic to and from Oz.
 
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If you have the data could you please tell me how GA and VN are going.
We have shifted a bit of our flying over to SkyTeam and atleast visually it appears that the SYD-DPS on GA and SYD-SGN routes seem well patronised
 
Melburnian1, you mention only 0.4% growth of international traffic for MEL, but what is the growth for “Melbourne”? (i.e. accounting for the D7’s move in December to AVV).

Also on MH, interesting observation, anecdotally I’d suggest this year yields may have also improved, as up until about 12 months ago they were always very competitive pricing wise (on SIN-MEL) compared to the direct services, but this year not even close, usually EK or QF is either cheaper or only more expensive by <$100, compared to past where delta was sometimes in the order of $200-$300.

As for SQ numbers, I can’t remember if it was the case in April, but MEL now has 5xdaily. However I wonder if the Scoot charters operated by SQ to SYD/PER (due to 787 engine problems) are counted in the SQ statistics as these have operated with SQ flight numbers.
 
dajop, the 0.4 per cent growth was inbound. Outbound for MEL in April 2019, compared to April 2018, growth in passenger numbers was 8.9 per cent giving overall change (posiive) of 4.6 per cent. But as mentioned above, not a good comparison because in 2018, part of Easter fell in March whereas in 2019 it was all in April.
 
If you have the data could you please tell me how GA and VN are going.
We have shifted a bit of our flying over to SkyTeam and atleast visually it appears that the SYD-DPS on GA and SYD-SGN routes seem well patronised

I don't have access to yields per available seat that is the most important measure, but in terms of seats occupied, GA is reasonable but not great with April 2019 inbound just under 64 per cent and outbound 74 oer cent, while for VN figures were higher in low 80s for April 2019.
 
dajop, the 0.4 per cent growth was inbound. Outbound for MEL in April 2019, compared to April 2018, growth in passenger numbers was 8.9 per cent giving overall change (posiive) of 4.6 per cent. But as mentioned above, not a good comparison because in 2018, part of Easter fell in March whereas in 2019 it was all in April.

I’ll look myself later but what I meant what was the change in traffic (both outbound and inbound ) of combined MEL+AVV in 2019 vs MEL in 2018 - that would give like for like comparison. Also statistically one could account for Easter by looking at combined March + April figures and compare year on year, maybe I’ll do that as an exercise on the weekend just for interests sake for the major airports.
 
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