Tuesday 20 September 2022

• Nearly 2.4 million to pass through Sydney Airport during September school holidays
• Forecast includes 1.65 million domestic passengers and 720,000 international passengers
• Airport is hosting second jobs fair on Wednesday 21 September to help fill vacancies
• In August 2022 total passenger traffic recovered to 72.5% of pre-COVID levels

Sydney Airport is forecasting nearly 2.4 million passengers will pass through its terminals from Monday 19 September to Sunday 9 October, surpassing the 2.1 million passengers that were welcomed during the equivalent 21-day school holiday period from Monday 27 June to Sunday 17 July.

The September school holiday forecast anticipates a total of 1.65 million domestic passengers and 720,000 international passengers, compared to 1.5 million domestic passengers and 560,000 domestic passengers during the July school holidays.

Sydney Airport CEO Geoff Culbert said the airport was better placed than at any time during the recovery to handle the demand, but passengers should continue to arrive two hours prior departure for domestic flights, and three hours ahead for international.

“All of the organisations across the airport have been working hard to rebuild their workforces and we are seeing improved operational performance on most days, but labour shortages are an ongoing challenge with around 4,000 open roles across the airport.

“The school holidays will test us again, and we are expecting the terminals to be busy during peak periods, especially Thursday, Friday and Monday mornings.

“We will have more than 60 additional customer service staff in the terminals every day guiding passengers and bringing people forward in order of flight priority at peak times.”

Ahead of the September school holidays and with an eye to the peak Christmas period, Sydney Airport is hosting a second jobs fair to help meet the ongoing need for staff across airport organisations.

Thousands of jobseekers are expected to turn out for more than 4,000 roles across major employers including Virgin Australia, Qantas, Australian Border Force, Certis Security Australia, Australian Federal Police, Saint Laurent, Heinemann Tax & Duty Free, Global Exchange and Swissport.

The first jobs fair in June 2022 was successful in helping fill around 2,500 vacant roles.

August 2022 passenger traffic

Total passenger traffic in August 2022 was 2,662,000 passengers, down 27.5% on the corresponding period in 2019.

Domestic passenger traffic totalled 1,859,000 in August 2022, down 19.1% on the corresponding period in 2019. 802,000 international passengers passed through Sydney Airport in August 2022, down 41.6% on the corresponding period in 2019.

1 Due to data availability, all international passenger numbers (including prior corresponding period comparisons) are based on Confirmed Airline Passenger (CAP) data. As per previous information releases, these figures may contain estimates with any adjustments to preliminary statistics included in the year-to-date results in future months

2 Includes Domestic-on-Carriage