Cairns Airport continues its post-Covid recovery with Christmas crowds
Cairns Airport has continued its impressive post-Covid recovery, with visitor numbers over the holiday period approaching close to pre-Covid levels.
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Cairns Airport has continued its impressive post-Covid recovery as it welcomed and dispatched travellers for the holidays with numbers reaching close to pre-Covid levels.
The festive season sent loved ones flying across the country to reunite with family and friends at levels not seen since before the pandemic.
International travellers are back as well.
Max Burton and Nikki Daniels were travelling from Minneapolis in the USA and were staying in the far North for two weeks.
“We are primarily here to do some birding, we will be going up to the Tablelands and then the Daintree rainforest before doing a five day live-aboard cruise,” Mr Burton said.
Jane English and Shane Brown were travelling from the Western Cape.
“We flew in from Weipa, my husband is here for work and im visiting for medical. We will also be visiting family in the Tablelands,” Ms English said.
“At the moment we are staying indefinitely.”
Cairns Airport manager of aviation business development David Nye revealed the huge number of people who had passed through the airport this holiday period.
“We have seen more than 160,000 passengers through Cairns Airport in the last two weeks,” Mr Nye said.
“This is about nine per cent less than the same period in 2019, which aligns with the reduced capacity of airlines across Australia at this time.
“Travel over this period has been largely driven by those visiting friends and relatives during the festive season.”
Mr Nye also pointed to more to come in the new year as the air travel industry continues to recover and increase capacity and operations.
“Our domestic airlines are expected to be back to full operations by Easter and new airline Bonza is due to start operating in early 2023,” he said.
Australians are also taking their hard earned time off to travel overseas once again.
“Japan and Bali have performed strongly from Cairns over the Christmas period for Australians heading offshore.”
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