• Summary
• Time series
• Monthly publications
• Annual publications

Summary

There were 3.67 million passengers carried on Australian domestic commercial aviation (including charter operations) in May 2021, compared to 0.39 million in May 2020 and 5.12 million in May 2019.

3.38 million passengers were carried on RPT flights in May 2021, compared to 176 thousand reported in May 2020 and 4.89 million reported in May 2019.

For the year ending May 2021 there were 19.56 million RPT passengers, a decrease of 60.5 per cent on the year ending May 2020.

RPT revenue passenger kilometres (RPKs) performed were 3.92 billion for the month, compared with 0.18 billion in May 2020.

Capacity, measured by available seat kilometres (ASKs), increased to 5.75 billion in May 2021 compared to 0.46 billion in May 2020.

The industry wide load factor (RPKs/ASKs) increased from 40.1 per cent in May 2020 to 68.2 per cent in May 2021.

For the month of May 2021, Melbourne – Sydney was Australia’s busiest RPT route with 378.7 thousand passengers.

Sydney was Australia’s busiest domestic airport with 1.34 million passenger movements in May 2021.

Total cargo movements at Australian airports on domestic RPT flights were 33.5 thousand tonnes in May 2021, an increase of 24.4 per cent compared with May 2020.

In May 2021, there were 1.66 million domestic passenger movements through regional airports, compared to 108.6 thousand in May 2020.

Fixed-wing charter operators carried 288.2 thousand passengers in May 2021, an increase of 37.7 per cent on May 2020. Perth Airport accounted for 37.3 per cent of all charter passengers in Australia.

Summary of annual RPT activity

*percentage point difference