Perth Airport Reports April 2009 Passenger Traffic

April 2009 passenger figures for Perth Airport have demonstrated strong growth in both international and domestic sectors despite the current slowdown experienced elsewhere in Australia and overseas.

For the month of April 2009, the number of international passengers travelling through Perth Airport increased by 8.9 % over April last year with seat capacity also up by 11.6%.

Financial year to date International passenger figures have reached 2.2 million passengers up 3.5% higher than the same period last year.

Domestic passenger numbers were up by 4.5% on April 2008 with 6 million domestic passengers this financial year to date being 7.3% more than at the same time last year. Intrastate passenger figures continue to grow, recording an increase of 8.5% from April last year and interstate figures increased by 2.7%.

Perth Airport Chief Executive Officer, Mr Brad Geatches said the impact of the economic slowdown on aviation demand in Western Australia has been less than that experienced elsewhere in Australia and overseas.

“Our passenger figures have remained relatively strong for a number of reasons, including a substantial increase in domestic and international seat capacity in the past 12 months and increased low cost airline participation.

“In particular we have seen good growth in the Indonesian and Malaysian markets. Passenger figures for those travelling to Bali were up significantly with a 37% increase on April last year and we have seen a considerable increase with the number of Malaysian nationality visitors travelling to Western Australia up an incredible 82%.

“We continue to see signs of confidence in the Western Australian market, with AirAsia recently announcing their new daily services to Indonesia due to commence July this year.”

Adelaide was also a top performing destination last month, thanks largely to new services from Jetstar and Tiger Airways. New daily services to Darwin with VirginBlue will also see more competition in the domestic market.

Mr Geatches said, while passenger numbers have continued to grow there is no doubt our airlines are experiencing extremely difficult trading conditions and are discounting fares to keep people flying.

“Now is a great time to fly with travellers able to take advantage of the great deals on offer by many
airlines,” Mr Geatches added.

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