Aussie November load factor hits nine-year high

The move by Australian airlines to keep a tight rein on capacity saw November load factors hitting their highest monthly average since October 2009. The number of people flying on domestic scheduled flights increased in November by 0.2 percent to 5.23m on the 65 regular public transport (RPT)  routes that average more than 8000 passengers a month. But the number of available seats fell by 1.6 percent as carriers continued to put the brake on capacity growth to help bolster average fares. Traffic measured by the industry’s preferred measure, revenue passenger kilometres,  grew by 0.3 percent and capacity measured as available seat kilometres fell by 1.3 percent compared to a year ago. READ Airline share prices fell by 20 percent in 2018 This saw the average load factor rise from 82 percent in November 2017 to 83.3 percent in November 2018. Load factors increased on 37 of the 65 included RPT routes, according to the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics. Load factors on major routes such as Melbourne-Sydney (89.4 percent), Brisbane-Sydney (87.5 percent). Brisbane-Melbourne (88 percent), Melbourne-Perth (86.6 percent) and Perth-Sydney (86.7 percent) were all higher than the average. Pressure on Queensland holiday destination Cairns saw load factors topping 90 percent for the month, suggesting airlines would not have been able to meet demand on some flights. This included Cairns -Sydney (91.7 percent), Cairns-Melbourne (91.5 percent) and Brisbane-Cairns 90.9 percent. Western Australia and the Northern Territory experienced some of the lowest load factors with Alice Springs-Darwin at 52.4 percent and Geraldton-Perth at 52.9 percent. West Australian mining centres such as Newman, Port Hedland, Kalgoorlie and Karratha were all in the sixties, although Kalgoorlie-Perth saw the biggest percentage growth for the month at 18.2 percent. Melbourne-Sydney remained Australia’s busiest RPT route with 805,670 passengers, followed by Brisbane-Sydney and Brisbane-Melbourne. The BITRE airfares index show best real discount fares were about 6.7 percent higher in November 2018 compared to the previous November but business class fares were lower. Discount air fares have been trending upwards in the last few years but are still significantly below the 2003 benchmark used by the bureau. Business class fares have been falling since about mid-2017, according to the index.