January 2025 Monthly traffic update

January 2025 Monthly traffic update

• In January 2025, there was a total of 1,060k international passenger movements in the month, a 4% increase compared to the same month in January 2024 and a 3% increase on the month prior December 2024. International passenger movements, excluding transits, for the month of January 2025 increased by 5% compared to same month last year and represents a recovery to 94% of the pre-COVID equivalent, the highest recovery rate post the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic;

• International seat capacity decreased by 2% for the month of January and when combined with the increase in international passengers of 4% resulted in airline average load factors increasing by 5 percentage points to reach 87%. Load factors on the China routes improved the most, increasing by 15 percentage points to 85%, and load factors on North America routes improving by 6 percentage points to 82%;

• International transit passenger movements continued to decline, falling 17% during January 2025 due to airlines continuing to prioritise point-to-point passengers at the expense of Americas to Australia transit passenger flows. Reviewing changes in international passengers excluding transits shows that Chinese nationals increased by 20% when compared to the year prior due to Chinese New Year occurring earlier in the calendar year this year compared to last year. There were an additional 14k Australian nationals during the month, a 13% increase and New Zealand nationals also increased by 14k, a 4% increase;

• Domestic passenger movements increased 2% in the month of January 2025 when compared to the same month in prior year with seat capacity increasing by 1% and load factors largely unchanged at 87%. Domestic passengers on the jet routes increased in the month with a similar percentage decrease on regional routes; and

• Queenstown Airport international passenger numbers in January 2025 increased 11% on the year prior and domestic passengers increased 3% on the same month last year. January 2025 was the first month where international passenger numbers exceeded 100k in a month and total passengers exceeded 250k.

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