‘Not out of the woods’: Travellers urged to brace for airport delays

With school holidays just days away, the boss of one of Australia’s busiest airports has warned travellers to prepare for an extremely busy travel period.

Just days away from the start of school holidays, the boss of Sydney Airport is warning travellers to brace for a “busy” travel period as the transit centre continues to be understaffed by thousands.

Sydney Airport CEO Geoff Culbert estimates 2.5m travellers will transit through the airport over the next two weeks.

“It is going to be busy,” he told Channel 9’s Today Show.

“But we are in a better position than in June-July or the April school holidays.”

Sydney Airport CEO Geoff Culbert has cautioned school holidays travellers to be ready for delays. Picture: Justin Lloyd

The airport handled approximately 2.1m travellers over the winter school holiday period, which was marred by the worst cancellation and flight delays in nearly two decades.

Mr Culbert said the airport has since committed to a heavy push for recruitment, but the job losses during the pandemic have left a deep scar on the industry.

“We are not out of the woods yet,” he said.

“We are still about 4,000 people short of where we need to be on resourcing across the entire airport precinct, but we are going to manage it as best we can.”

15,000 airport workers lost their jobs at the height of the Covid pandemic, when the country’s international and interstate borders closed and travel dwindled to a trickle.

Mr Culbert said the airport had managed to recruit 10,000 people over the last six months to “get people back into the airport precinct” but thousands more are still needed for vital roles.

The airport has seen success in filling roles through jobs fairs, with more than 2500 people hired at such an event held during winter. The Sydney Airport boss said another jobs fair is scheduled for Thursday, with 3,000 people registered to attend.

He warned travellers could continue to experience issues for months to come as the airport struggles to regain its pre-pandemic efficiency.

Sydney Airport has been choked with lengthy queues and irate customers at peak holiday periods.

“We think we are going to get there by the end of year, to early next year,” the airport boss said.

“So we are continuing to work harder. We are throwing everything we can at (the problem).”

With school holidays fast approaching, the airport boss urged travellers to arrive two hours early for domestic flights and three hours early for international flights.

The dire prediction of more pain for travellers comes after an aviation expert warned travel chaos could continue into next year as the industry battles to meet soaring demand amid staffing issues.

Flight Centre managing director Graham Turner previously predicted air travel will have improved by October or November, when “it will be much better off” but travellers may continue to experience issues through to next year.

Sydney Airport has been plagued by issues since the borders reopened, with complaints of frequent flight cancellations, lengthy delays and baggage losses.

Figures show the worst months for issues have coincided with school holiday travel surges.

Over the winter school holidays, Sydney Airport was named one of the world’s worst airports for flight cancellations and delays by flight tracking platform FlightAware.

Travellers were forced to queue outside Sydney Airport in August. Picture: Twitter / @ConnickFleur

Figures showed nearly 6 per cent of flights were cancelled and more than 34 per cent were affected by delays.

However, the airport’s performance has improved since then.

In August, data from aviation analytics firm OAG shows Sydney Airport was ranked 557th out of 639 airports.

Less than 4 per cent of flights were cancelled last month and more than 62 per cent of flights departed the airport on time.