‘Arrive early’: Travellers warned as Brisbane Airport braces for huge numbers

Travellers going through Brisbane Airport these school holidays have been warned to arrive early.

Brisbane Airport is bracing for its busiest period since the start of the pandemic, with passengers numbers set to surge by 13 per cent over the Easter holiday period.

The airport’s head of public affairs Stephen Beckett said some 1.4 million people are likely to come through the Brisbane terminal over the school holidays.

“It’s largely driven by the increasing number of international services since the Covid restrictions were eased,” he said.

“(But) Easter is typically the busiest time at the Brisbane Airport as the most people visit or leave Queensland.

Passenger numbers are expected to start surging from today and tomorrow, as people head off for the school holidays, while others travel to Melbourne for the Formula 1.

Brisbane Airport is bracing for its busiest period since the pandemic began. Picture David Clark

“Easter Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Monday are going to be our busiest days, so we do strongly recommend people arrive early.

“We will be recommending people arrive 90 minutes before a domestic flight and three hours before an international service and we will comfortably get people on their way.”

Mr Beckett warned travellers to come prepared over the busy Easter period.

“We’ve done some modelling and some predicting, we are making sure we a rostering more people on during the peaks,” he said.

“One thing is we want you to know airport carparking is selling out fast. If you are thinking of driving to the airport make sure you book your parking as fast as you can.

“Also with taxis and rideshare, there may be wait times longer than people expect so we recommend people plan ahead.”

Brisbane Domestic Airport is expected to have a rush. Picture David Clark

Mr Beckett said domestic travel was almost back to pre-pandemic levels but international still had a way to go.

“We are up significantly up on last year but we are still not back to 2019 levels,” he said.

“From this time last year, international capacity is up 77 per cent. Last year there were very few flights coming in overseas.”

Mr Beckett said it was thanks to new flight options to places like Vietnam, San Francisco and Vanuatu.

There were also quite a lot of visitors coming into Queensland.

“As airlines bring on new services, those numbers will continue to grow,” he said.

“This is fantastic news for Queenslands tourism and hospitality. It’s great news for families reconnecting with family and friends.

“If we compare international now to international in 2019, we are only now 64 per cent of the capacity that we had in 2019 internationally.”

But the international market has changed.

“Before the pandemic, India was our eigth biggest inbound market, it’s now number four for visitors,” he said.