Sydney Airport hails huge rebound in Chinese travellers

Chinese passport holders are now third biggest nationality to pass through Australia’s largest international gateway as Sydney Airport reports a “remarkable” rebound in April.

Sydney Airport is seeing a strong rebound in Chinese travellers, already back to the third biggest nationality through the gateway. Picture: NCA Newswire/Gaye Gerard

Sydney Airport has hailed the return of Chinese visitors in its latest monthly passenger data, with travellers from mainland China now back to 53.8 per cent of pre-Covid levels.

The April figure was up from 39.6 per cent in March, and saw China jump from the fifth biggest nationality through the airport, to third after Australians and New Zealanders.

Increased airline capacity from China was helping to drive the growth, with more flights coming online in coming weeks.

“It’s phenomenal to see the number of Chinese nationals visiting Sydney already more than 50 per cent recovered on pre-pandemic levels, especially considering the border only fully reopened in March,” said Sydney Airport chief executive Geoff Culbert.

“At the end of this month Sydney Airport will have seven mainland Chinese passenger carriers offering 30 return services per week, with even more flights to be added soon. That’s remarkable considering we started the year with just three airlines flying four return services to mainland China a week.”

Qantas also announced its return to China on Friday, with daily flights between Sydney and Shanghai to start on October 29.

Mr Culbert said while the domestic recovery remained sluggish due to high airfares and constrained capacity, momentum through the T1 was strong.

“Capacity across the entire international market is building, with carriers including Singapore Airlines, United Airlines and Asiana Airlines all recently announcing additional flights to Sydney,” Mr Culbert said.

Beijing Capital Airlines was among the carriers to return to Sydney in recent weeks, offering two weekly services to Qingdao.

Hainan Airlines was due to resume flights to Haikou, then on to Taiyun from Saturday May 20, and Xiamen Airlines would fly daily to Xiamen from May 28, up from 4 services a week.

China Southern and China Eastern were also planning capacity increases from June while Singapore Airlines introduced a second A380 to its four-daily Sydney flights this week.

United Airlines was set to fly twice a day from Sydney to San Francisco from June 28, and Asiana Airlines was boosting flights to Seoul from daily to nine a week, with four of those operated by A380s.

The influx from China followed the launch of Tourism Australia’s “come and say g’day” campaign there in March, five-months after the global rollout.

Prior to the pandemic, more than a million Chinese visitors travelled down under a year, and spent $12.4bn making them Australia’s biggest and most lucrative source of international tourists.

Federal government forecasts suggested numbers would not fully rebound until 2026, but Tourism Australia remained hopeful of a faster recovery.