Travel-mania gives way to airports’ busiest Christmas in three years

Santa will have to share the skies with a lot more air traffic this Christmas with over 15,000 flights scheduled in Australia.

Air traffic controllers will handle more than 15,000 flights in the five days before Christmas including more than 4000 at Sydney Airport. Picture: Peter Rae/AAP

Airport crowds are set to swell to their largest level in three years in the lead up to Christmas with 15,000 flights scheduled over a frantic five days.

The vast majority of those flights — or more than 11,000 — will operate out of the four big airports of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth.

Sydney Airport is expecting 4103 flights from December 20 to 24 which amounts to 134 per cent of last year’s traffic and 95 per cent of 2019 figures (4315 flights).

Melbourne Airport will see 658 flights a day or 3291 across the five days, Brisbane Airport 2552 flights or 510 flights a day and 1387 flights are due in and out of Perth, up from 1096 last year.

A number of other airports including Canberra, Hobart, Ballina, Rockhampton, Townsville and Mackay are operating at levels well above those in 2019 due to heightened demand for domestic travel.

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Airservices Australia chief executive officer Jason Harfield said all efforts were being made to ensure the smooth passage of pre-Christmas flights, despite potential headwinds in the form of weather and looming industrial action by airport firefighters.

He said they were doing everything they could to reach agreement with the United Firefighters Union to avert proposed strikes in December but the weather was much more difficult to manage.

“Unfortunately we can’t control the weather but we can minimise the effects of it just by being as prepared as we possibly can,” Mr Harfield said.

“To that end, every evening we sit down with the airlines and have a conference call with the Bureau of Meteorology and try to set up schedules for the next day depending on the weather situation.”

He was confident air traffic control towers were sufficiently well resourced to keep up with the packed flight schedule, even with the shift to more regional flights.

“Traffic hasn’t come back exactly as it was pre-Covid. Our regional ports are over 40 per cent higher than what they were pre-Covid, so that was a big dynamic shift in the operation,” said Mr Harfield.

Airport staffing could be a different story however with gateways still struggling to rebuild their workforce to pre-pandemic levels.

Australian Airports Association chief executive James Goodwin said record low unemployment was making recruitment a challenge and he urged “co-operation and understanding” from travellers.

“Airports will be working closely with authorities to make sure any unruly or disruptive behaviour is not tolerated, and we urge people to respect each other and the staff working at airports and airlines,” Mr Goodwin said.

His remarks followed a security breach at Brisbane Airport late Sunday that saw everyone at the Virgin Australia end of the domestic terminal forced to be re-screened.

As a result 33 flights were delayed for an average of 30 minutes, and some by as much as 80 minutes.

BAC spokesman Stephen Beckett said an internal review was underway after some passengers went through the X-ray machine but left before they were given the all clear.

“We’re very pleased that when these people were re-screened, they presented no risk to other passengers and staff and we do apologise for the interruption to travel,” Mr Beckett said.

Originally published as Travel-mania gives way to airports’ busiest Christmas in three years