Winter school holidays are now underway (or on their way!) in states and territories across Australia and New Zealand with bumper crowds making the most of the cooler climes or escaping for warm weather getaways.
Brisbane and Melbourne’s airports have each forecasted more than 1.5 million domestic and international passengers will pass through the respective hubs across the three-week winter school holiday period, while Sydney Airport also expects a greater volume of passengers.
Bound for Brissie
Brisbane Airport expects 1.5 million travellers to pass through the domestic and international terminals between 23 June – 17 July with a year-on-year increase of 53 per cent for international passengers.
Aussies from the southern states are also eyeing Queensland’s subtropical winter with BNE’s top domestic passenger volume coming from Sydney and Melbourne.
For international travel, BNE’s busiest days forecast 14,000-plus daily passengers in early July, predominantly from NZ, the UK and the US, while Queenslanders are heading off to New Zealand, Bali and India.
BNE also recently welcomed back direct routes to Santo with Air Vanuatu and debuted nonstop Vietjet flights to Ho Chi Minh City.
Melbourne’s back!
In exciting news, Melbourne Airport is approaching 100 per cent of its pre-COVID capacity after a post-pandemic record month in May 2023.
Fridays will be MEL’s busiest days with more than 105,000 travellers forecast on those dates over the three-week holiday period.
Overall, 1.1 million-plus people will travel through MEL on domestic flights from Friday 23 June, while the international terminal expects more than 500,000 total passengers, up a total of 12.8 per cent on last year’s holiday period.
Popular overseas destinations for Melburnians include European transit hubs Singapore and Dubai along with Bali and New Zealand, while the top domestic destinations are Sydney, Brisbane and Gold Coast.
Sydney eyes super-sized crowds
In May 2023, Sydney Airport had 3.01 million total passengers, a year-on-year increase of 24.4 per cent.
The upcoming July school holidays will see even larger crowds as more airlines and additional international and domestic routes have returned to SYD.
Recent announcements include Rex Sydney-Adelaide flights, Qantas SYD-JFK services via AKL and SYD-SFO flights.
Across the country, Qantas and Jetstar expects to fly more than 4 million customers during the school holidays as travellers make the most of extra capacity and new routes.
Air NZ ups domestic capacity
Across the ditch, Air New Zealand expects more than 580,000 Kiwis will jet off for the school holidays on 6,500 domestic flights. The carrier has added an extra 45,000 seats compared to last July to cater for the huge demand.
Domestically, Kiwis are heading to the snow with Queenstown the most popular destination on the Air NZ network.
Internationally, Air NZ passengers’ most sought-after destinations are Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane followed by Singapore and Nadi, Fiji, with around 230,000 Kiwis booked to travel during the July holidays.
Air NZ also recently resumed direct seasonal services between Auckland and the Sunshine Coast.
Across all airports and airlines, the school holiday travel advice remains the same: plan ahead for transport to the airport, arrive at least 90 minutes before a domestic flight or three hours before an international departure and keep calm!
