Adelaide Airport ranked Australia’s fastest growing international capital city airport

Adelaide Airport has been ranked Australia’s fastest growing capital city airport for international passenger numbers in 2016/17.

Data released by the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE) shows international passenger numbers at Adelaide Airport grew by 10.9 per cent up to the end of June 2017. The next best airport was Darwin with 9.9 per cent growth, followed by Melbourne at 7.2 per cent. The average across all Australian international airports was 6.7 per cent.
Managing Director, Mark Young, said Adelaide’s strong growth had been built around the introduction of new airlines and destinations, and other airlines adding services or ‘upgauging’ to bigger aircraft.

“Over the past year we’ve welcomed our very first direct mainland China service to Guangzhou with China Southern, and Fiji Airways travelling to Nadi. The success of China Southern has already seen it announce additional seasonal services on top of its initial schedule,” Mr Young said.
“We’ve also consolidated the Qatar Airways service to Doha, which started in May 2016, while other airlines have either added additional services or have put on bigger aircraft to cater for demand.

“Just last month we welcomed our first state-of-the-art Dreamliner service, being flown by Air New Zealand between Adelaide and Auckland.”
Mr Young said Adelaide Airport had teamed up with the State Government to ensure new visitors to the State felt welcome and had ready access to information.
“Our team worked for months to be ‘China Ready’ ahead of China Southern’s first flight from Guangzhou. Several of our airport volunteer ambassadors are Chinese speaking, and we have tapped into the WeChat social media platform to provide information to our visitors,” he said.

“Adelaide Airport has also become the first in the world to sign up for the ground-breaking UWAI Chinese visitor app, to help incoming passengers overcome the language barrier.”
Adelaide Airport is currently well advanced on the planning and design of a terminal expansion, due to commence in 2018. The expansion will in particular focus on the customer experience for international departures and arrivals.

“Our extraordinary international growth, particularly over the past 5 years, means we’re rapidly outgrowing our current international facilities. We’ll be expanding the international arrivals and departures area, as well as creating new retail spaces and more efficient access to and from aircraft,” Mr Young said.

A record 952,000 international passengers flew to and from Adelaide in 2016/17. Adelaide Airport currently flies an average of 46 international services each week to 9 international destinations with 9 different airlines.