Holidaying Queenslanders make Cairns Australia’s busiest airport

A new ‘golden triangle’ of air travel has emerged in the COVID crisis as visitors pour into north Queensland.

Queenslanders have been heading north to Cairns this winter. Picture: Supplied.

Australia has a new “golden triangle” for aviation, with Brisbane-Cairns-Townsville now seeing more flights and passengers than Sydney-Melbourne-Brisbane.

Qantas CEO Alan Joyce revealed on Thursday that Brisbane to Cairns had become the airline’s best performing route in the COVID crisis, with demand for flights exceeding that before the pandemic.

In the space of a few weeks, Qantas has increased services from 22 return flights a week, to 53 in response to demand, with the potential for more when state border restrictions are eased.

Brisbane-Townsville is the second most popular route nationwide with 44 return services a week across three airlines, and Brisbane-Mackay third, aided by the ongoing demand from the resources sector.

In contrast Sydney-Melbourne-Brisbane are each seeing just a couple of return flights a day between those cities, due to border restrictions limiting travel to essential workers or returning residents.

It’s a state of affairs Cairns Airport chief executive Norris Carter is well aware of, with ten flights a day from Brisbane delivering around 1500 people to the far north Queensland city.

“Pre-COVID Brisbane-Cairns was the country’s 11th more popular route, now it’s the first,” Mr Carter said.

“It means the airport is operating at about 25 per cent of pre-COVID passengers across all the routes so we have still got some tourist activity happening.”

Tourism Tropical North Queensland CEO Mark Olsen agreed the popularity of the Brisbane-Cairns route was “a glimmer of hope in a very difficult time for the industry”.

“It is great to see that the Brisbane-Cairns route has become the most popular in the country but it’s a long road to recovery for the industry while three-quarters of our target markets are unable to travel here,” Mr Olsen said.

“While national travel is constrained it’s no surprise that people are choosing Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef but we’d love to see more seats, more flights and more visitors because we’ve got the highest number of businesses here relying on Jobkeeper for their survival, with 10,008.”

Cairns Airport is operating at about 25 per cent of normal capacity but is currently the nation’s busiest. Picture: Brendan Radke

A number of hotels in the city remained closed and a lot of businesses were hamstrung until international borders reopened, such was the reliance on foreign visitors.

In addition to the Brisbane-Cairns flights, the city was also seeing regular flights to Adelaide and Darwin, and looking forward to recommencement of Gold Coast services from September 1.

Townsville has also seen some recovery in recent months, with 58,490 passengers in July. more than the previous three months combined.

Owner Queensland Airports Limited which also operates Gold Coast, Mount Isa and Longreach Airports, was encouraged by the improvement.

But CEO Chris Mills said they still had a long way to go.

“We are concerned that confidence in travel planning generally is being affected by changing

restrictions and a lack of clarity on the rules for when borders are opened and shut,” Mr Mills said.

Qantas’ Mr Joyce also highlighted the popularity of Perth-Broome flights, which the West Australian tourism spot welcomed.

Broome Chamber of Commerce president Peter Taylor said a deal by the state government with Qantas had delivered additional flights at cost effective rates, which had been “hugely successful in getting tourists into Broome”.

“Many of our businesses that rely on West Australian business have had a record month,” Mr Taylor said.

“Frankly there’s so many people who have been locked up for so long and unable to spend money, they can’t wait to get out and they’ve got money to spend.”