Airport crowds ‘bigger than Christmas’ as record numbers of travellers take off for Easter

In just two days, half a million people have taken off on holidays from Australia’s biggest airports with barely a hitch in a stark contrast to last year’s mayhem.

Easter holidays are off to a flying start for hundreds of thousands of Australians with major airports packed with record post-pandemic crowds.

In stark contrast to the same time last year, passengers moved check-in and security relatively quickly despite huge queues, thanks to a recovery in airports’ workforce.

Sydney Airport was expecting 120,000 passengers through its three terminals on both Holy Thursday and Good Friday, making those days bigger than Christmas for the gateway.

The numbers indicated domestic travel was now back to an encouraging 94 per cent of Easter 2019 levels and international at 85 per cent.

Melbourne Airport also ticked over into six-figures with 100,000 passengers booked to travel on the busiest days through Tullamarine and Brisbane Airport clocked a post-pandemic record of 69,000 travellers on Thursday.

Although Brisbane’s figure was still some way off the airport’s all time record of 83,867 passengers set in December 2017, head of public affairs Stephen Beckett said it was very encouraging.

“When Brisbane Airport is busy, Queensland’s tourism economy is busy and that is great for jobs,” Mr Beckett said.

“And right now the lure of our summer-like weather is magnetically attractive to southerners.”

Virgin Australia, Qantas and Jetstar were all heavily booked over Easter, particularly on routes to the Gold Coast, Cairns, Hamilton Island, Sydney, Melbourne and Hobart.

Queensland Airports Ltd chief operating officer Marion Charlton said Gold Coast passenger numbers were just 3 per cent below Easter 2019, with 124 flights scheduled for Good Friday.

Significant recruitment by airlines and airports promised to smooth the way for travellers after last year’s kilometre-long queues, flight delays and lost baggage.

A Virgin Australia spokeswoman said the airline was “working hard to deliver a reliable operation to guests”.

“We have hired approximately 480 team members across key operational roles to support the ramp up in flying activity since January this year,” said the spokeswoman.

“We are also investing in the areas that matter to our guests, including in our contact centre where our call wait times are as low as 22-seconds.”

Virgin Australia, Qantas and Jetstar were all heavily booked over Easter. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Geraghty

On the international front, medium-haul destinations were attracting most interest from Easter holiday-makers, including Bali, Fiji, Queenstown, Singapore and Hong Kong.

New flights by Vietjet out of Melbourne to Ho Chi Minh City were due to takeoff on Saturday and Virgin Australia was seeing good loads on Samoa and Vanuatu routes.

Travellers were encouraged to arrive at least 90-minutes early for domestic flights, and two to three hours ahead of time for international.

Melbourne Airport chief of aviation Jim Parashos also advised travellers to book online for carparking “as far in advance as possible” and allow extra time to find a car space.

“We know this is an exciting but busy time, so we ask people to be patient and respectful as the team works to get you where you need to be as quickly and safely as possible,” Mr Parashos said.

He also assured travellers that one of the airport’s biggest challenges since borders reopened – baggage handling – had been addressed.

“(Baggage handling) companies have filled around 1000 roles over the past few months so we don’t expect to have significant issues over the holidays,” said Mr Parashos.

Flight delays due to staff shortages in air traffic control towers, were not expected to be a major problem over Easter with Airservices moving to “add resilience” to operations.

An Airservices spokeswoman said they would continue to monitor the situation and review protocols, “to keep Australia moving throughout this busy holiday period”.

Civil Air president Tom McRobert was less confident though, suggesting the situation over Easter would be “precarious”.

“We’re better than we probably have been, with a few new people coming on board,” Mr McRobert said.

“(Staffing) doesn’t seem to be quite as bad at the moment but the big challenge over Easter will be weather. It’s always a big one at this time of year.”