Sydney Airport has announced a strong recovery in its Q1 2024 operational performance, with a total of 10.3 million passengers passing through its terminals.
This represents a 14.4 percent increase on passenger traffic during the same period last year and a 93.7 percent recovery compared to Q1 2019. Sydney Airport’s T1 international terminal saw 4.16 million passengers pass through in Q1, a 25.1 percent increase on the same period last year and a 96.6 percent recovery rate on Q1 2019.
Domestic and regional passenger traffic was up 8.2 percent on the same period last year, with 6.16 million passengers coming through the T2 and T3 domestic terminals and a 91.9 percent recovery rate on Q1 2019. During Q1, travellers on Australian passports grew 3.1 percent compared to Q1 2019, with the number of passengers from New Zealand, South Korea, India and the Philippines also above 2019 levels.
Operationally, the airport also performed strongly over the period delivering a positive experience for passengers travelling through the airport.
To deliver greater transparency on operations at the airport, a live feed of security wait times was launched during the quarter on Sydney Airport’s website with data refreshed every 60 seconds. Passengers can now check the website ahead of travel to understand how the security wait times are progressing within each terminal, delivering a better passenger experience.
Throughout Q1, 100 percent of domestic passengers and 99.9 percent of international passengers passed through security in less than 10 minutes. At the T2 and T3 Domestic terminals, 92.6 percent of passengers departed on time for their flight during the first wave of departures, with 83.6 percent of passengers departing on time for international services.
Traffic across the precinct flowed well, with minimal wait times for taxis at all terminals, while at the international terminal there were only five instances throughout Q1 when drop-off times briefly rose above 10 minutes.
Sydney Airport CEO Scott Charlton said the strong start to the year sets a positive trajectory for the airport’s growth.
“It took us 100 years to reach our first billion passengers, from 1919 to 2019. We’re forecast to hit 2 billion within the next 20 years, and we’ll get there by working closely with our airline partners, improving our operational performance and unlocking capacity through targeted investments,” he said.
“The Q1 passenger data shows us that on the domestic front, higher airfares, lack of capacity and a downturn in discretionary business travel has affected demand. This is contrasted with relatively higher seat capacity and competition on major international routes which underpinned strong international passenger volumes for the quarter.
“In terms of our operational performance, we’re focused on efficiency and delivering a seamless experience for all stakeholders, on-airport partners, and most importantly, passengers."
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