Airport’s across Australia are bracing for the busiest Christmas rush in a long while as they mark the first holiday season without any Covid restrictions impacting travel.
For the past two years, Christmas travel has been hampered by border closures, mask rules, and quarantine periods, putting a damper on the holiday season.
But now, with no restrictions in place, thousands of Aussies are packing their bags as they head off for a festive season filled with fun.
Today alone, Melbourne Airport is expecting 100,000 passengers to walk through their terminals as they head off to both domestic and international destinations.
They are just a fraction of the six million people expected to pass through the airport across December and January.
It is a 150 per cent increase on the previous summer holiday period and will rival pre-pandemic traffic on some days.
Melbourne Airport chief executive Lorie Argus said the airport is “well equipped to handle” the Christmas rush but urged passengers to plan ahead and leave plenty of extra time before flights.
Domestic passengers should plan to arrive 1-2 hours before their flight, while international passengers should leave 2-3 hours.
Increased security staff, strategic aircraft bay allocation to spread passenger loads, and technicians on hand to quickly respond to any infrastructure issues, are all measures being undertaken to ensure the season runs smoothly.
Meanwhile at Sydney Airport, 2.2 million people are expected to pass through the terminal during the Christmas peak, which is between 12 December and New Year’s Day.
This includes 1.4 million domestic passengers and more than 800,000 international passengers.
The airport has been ramping up all year in preparation for this peak period.
During the April school holidays, 1.8 million passengers passed through, 1.96 million in the July school holidays and 2.04 million by September.
Sydney Airport chief executive Geoff Culbert said some parts of the operation are “still fragile” but they are working hard to ensure passengers have the best experience at the airport.
“Some parts of the operation are still fragile, and we estimate we are around 2,000 employees short of where we need to be, but are working hard to make sure most passengers will have a typical pre-Covid Christmas experience at the airport – busy but not chaotic,” Mr Culbert said.
“The 10 days leading up to Christmas are going to be the busiest, and we’re continuing to ask passengers to arrive two hours prior departure for domestic flights, and three hours ahead for international.”
Last week, Brisbane Airport announced that they were pleased a planned strike by the United Workers Union was called off ahead of the busiest period at the airport.
The strike would likely have caused major delays and disruptions on Christmas flights for thousands of travellers.
In the same week, the airport celebrated a major milestone in the post-pandemic world with more than 14,000 passengers passing through the international terminal in a single day for the first time since 2019.
“To think this time last year, international travel was still capped at 1,000 arrivals per week through Brisbane Airport and people were entering 14 days of hotel quarantine,” Brisbane Airport Head of public affairs Stephen Beckett said.
“During the depths of the pandemic there were days when we had zero passengers through the terminal, so this is a remarkable bounce-back.”
They are expecting 3 million people to pass through both domestic and international terminals this holiday period.