A total of 3.41 million passengers passed through Sydney Airport in November 2023, a 15.0% increase on passenger traffic in November last year and a 91.4% recovery compared to November 2019.
Sydney Airport’s T1 international terminal saw 1.26 million passengers pass through in November, a 29.8% increase on the same month last year and a 93% recovery rate on November 2019.
Domestic passenger traffic was up 7.8% on the same month last year, with 2.15 million passengers coming through the T2 and T3 domestic terminals in November.
| Monthly Performance | Year-to-date performance | |||||
| Passengers’ | Nov-23 | Growth vs 2022 | Growth vs 2019 | YTD 2023 | YTD v 2022 | YTD v 2019 |
| Domestic | 2.15m | 7.8% | -9.5% | 22.02m | 16.2% | -12.6% |
| International2 | 1.26m | 29.8% | -7.0% | 13.04m | 84.3% | -14.7% |
| Total | 3.41m | 15.0% | -8.6% | 35.06m | 34.7% | -13.4% |
Australians heading abroad
The number of Australian passport holders travelling abroad from Sydney Airport was only 1% off pre-pandemic levels in November.
While the number of passport holders from New Zealand, China, the US and UK were still below 2019 levels, the number of passengers from South Korea, India and the Philippines were all well above.
| Top 10 Nationalities travelling through Sydney Airport in November 20233 | |||||
| Rank | Nationality | Growth vs 2019 | Rank | Nationality | Growth vs 2019 |
| 1 | Australia | -1% | 6 | United Kingdom | -21% |
| 2 | China | -25% | 7 | India | 8% |
| 3 | New Zealand | -8% | 8 | Japan | -18% |
| 4 | United States of America | -15% | 9 | Canada | -2% |
| 5 | South Korea | 29% | 10 | Philippines | 8% |
Sydney Airport CEO, Scott Charlton, said: “Australians’ desire for overseas travel is clearly back, with the number of Australian passport holders coming through the T1 international terminal returning to pre-pandemic levels.
“In terms of overseas visitors to Australia, passenger numbers are generally correlated to airline seat capacity. We are seeing strong passenger volumes from markets with high seat capacity, and where capacity is restricted, the recovery in passenger volumes has been slower.
“The same dynamic is at play domestically, where tighter airline capacity is translating to passenger volumes that are around 10 per cent lower than during the same period pre-pandemic.”
