Domestic Traffic Rises in April

There were 4.43 million domestic passengers in Australia during April 2010, representing a 5.1 per cent increased over the same time last year, according to data from the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE).

The increase in passengers brought revenue passenger kilometres up by 4.1 per cent, while capacity increased by 5.8 per cent. As a result, industry-wide load factor decreased from 79.3 per cent in April 2009 to 78.0 per cent. The number of aircraft trips increased by 7.7 per cent to 48591.

By route, the greatest increase in passengers was on the Adelaide-Brisbane route, where traffic was up 20 per cent. This was followed by Karratha-Perth (up 18.3 per cent), Brisbane-Rockhampton (up 17.7 per cent), Adelaide-Sydney (up 15.0 per cent) and Melbourne-Sydney (up 14.8 per cent). The biggest decrease in traffic was on Adelaide-Canberra (down 14.3 per cent), followed by Brisbane-Hamilton Island (down 10.2 per cent), Adelaide-Perth (down 9.0per cent) and Ballina-Sydney (down 7.2 per cent).