Sydney Airport ready for biggest holiday period for four years

Sydney Airport expects 2.6 million passengers to pass through its facilities during the upcoming Christmas break.

The anticipated total is up 500,000 passengers on last year’s Christmas holiday season, and represents a 95% recovery compared to the same period in 2019.

The international recovery is especially strong, with 1.1 million passengers expected to use T1 international terminal during the holidays, almost 300,000 more than last year or a 34% increase.

Around 1.5 million domestic passengers are forecast to pass through the T2 and T3 domestic terminals, around 200,000 more than last year or a 16% increase.

All images courtesy of Sydney Airport/Kurt Ams.

New airport CEO, Scott Charlton, enthused: “Our teams are excited and ready to welcome travellers for the airport’s biggest holiday period in four years.

“We are delighted to have so many people taking off to see loved ones and explore this great country.

“International travel is booming and almost back to pre-pandemic levels. While it’s great to see many Australians heading away on an overseas holiday, we’re also excited to welcome an influx of overseas visitors who are choosing to enjoy a summer getaway in Sydney.

“Airline capacity is now back to full strength, or beyond, to many key international destinations including the United States, China, South Korea, Indonesia and Vietnam.

“This is the first Christmas holiday since 2019 that the border with mainland China is open, and demand is strong, with seat capacity back to pre-COVID levels as we head into 2024.”

New programme announced to cut baggage wait times

To help reduce wait times for passengers during this bumper summer holiday period, the airport has launched a new incentive programmr aimed at speeding up the delivery of bags.

It involves the creation of a $250,000 monthly pool to be shared amongst ground handling companies that deliver bags to carousels faster at baggage reclaim in the T1 international terminal.

Ground handler companies are contracted by airlines, rather than by Sydney Airport, meaning innovative approaches like the incentive scheme are needed to encourage consistency.

Sydney Airport’s longer-term goal is to ensure no passenger waits more than 10 minutes at a baggage carousel.

The baggage handler incentive programme is also part of a longer-term plan to bring down connection times for transferring passengers between international and domestic terminals to 60 minutes.

Around one in five international passengers transfer onto a domestic flight, which involves taking a free transfer bus between the terminals. Several changes have recently been made to speed this process up, including adding new dedicated transfer check-in services at T1 international, installing new signage at key locations and moving the transfer bus stops closer to the terminals.

Another area where the airport has seen wait times reduce since 2022 is at security checkpoints.

Since the start of the year, 95% of domestic passengers have passed through security in less than five minutes, and 90% of international passengers within five minutes.

Adrian Witherow, Sydney Airport’s chief operating officer, said: “Airports are complex ecosystems and technology and infrastructure are only part of the equation. You need complete alignment between every service provider to deliver a great outcome for customers, and this is what our new baggage incentive does.

“Nothing will make us happier than writing a cheque to baggage handlers for $250,000 at the end of every month because, if we do, it means our customers have had a great experience.

“Whether it’s speeding up the lines at security or cutting down wait times at the baggage carousel, we want to make every minute count for our passengers, so they can spend more time enjoying the journey.”