February 2025 Monthly traffic update

GENERAL

Mon, Mar 17 2025 08:30 am

February 2025 Monthly traffic update

• In February 2025, there was a total of 844k international passenger movements in the month, a 3.2% decrease compared to the same month in 2024. February 2024 was a leap year, so on an equivalent 28 day month, international passenger movements increased 0.2%. International passenger movements, excluding transits, for the month of February 2025 decreased by 1.3% and on a similar day adjusted basis, a 2.1% increase compared to a 28 day month last year. International passenger movements in February 2025 represent a recovery to 93% of the pre-COVID equivalent, just 1 percentage point off the highest recovery rate post the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic;

• International seat capacity decreased by 7% for the month of February, resulting in airline load factors increasing by 4 percentage points to reach 83%. Once again, the two largest load factor increases were on the United States routes which improved by 11 percentage points and China routes improving by 7 percentage points compared to February 2024;

• International transit passenger movements continued to experience a large decline, falling 32% during February 2025 on the prior year reflecting 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 American nationals had the largest volume increase for the month of 3.6k or 4%, followed by Australian nationals increasing 2.5k or 2.8%. Chinese nationals decreased by 17k or 20% due to the timing of Chinese New Year;

• Domestic passenger movements decreased 5% in the month of February 2025 when compared to the same month in the prior year, a day adjusted decline of 1.6% with seat capacity the same as last year, resulting in domestic load factors declining by 4.4 percentage points to 84.4%; and

• Queenstown Airport international passenger numbers in February 2025 increased 3% on the year prior and domestic passengers decreased by 3% on the same month last year.

Please see attached pdf for full report.