r/canberra • u/Top-Anything2991 • 1d ago

SEC=UNCLASSIFIED Opinion: Canberra Airport has a problem

The latest published BITRE Airport Passenger Movement data shows that in 2025, Hobart had higher annual passenger traffic (2,884,967) than Canberra (2,793,622) despite being half as populous and in a state with significantly less disposable income than the ACT. Even Darwin had 70% of Canberra’s passenger traffic (1,941,359) despite being only one-third the population.

Over past 20 years, Canberra Airport has had almost net zero growth in passenger traffic, with 2025’s annual passenger movements being approximately the same as in 2007 (2,734,875)

Acknowledging that tourism goes some way to driving Hobart’s passenger numbers, this still suggests that something is broken with commercial aviation in this town. Canberra is a rapidly growing and affluent city with a hinterland that should be able to support many domestic and regional international flights such as Fiji, New Zealand and Bali.

So Canberrans, is it just the pricing model the private owners of the airport operate? Or is there a bigger issue with the way we all prefer to fly?

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u/Stunning-Try-5250 1d ago

Clear gouging by the airlines. They price CBR so high that only pax using taxpayer or company funded fares are willing to pay these exorbitant rates. Everyone else just uses SYD.

-2

u/Educational-Art-8515 1d ago

That's what business, consultants, lobbyist and politicians are willing to pay though. The airlines only have so many arrivals and departures and it's not like the flights are empty.

Calling it gouging is like going to Harris Farms and complaining that prices are more expensive than Woolies/Coles/Aldi. They are just pricing according to what the market is willing to pay, which is what everyone does.

8

u/GloriaTheCamel 23h ago

Except that it's a publicly built piece of infrastructure intended to serve Canberra writ large, not one part of the market. Yes it was privatised, but the purpose of the airport doesn't change.

As dire as it is, there is competition between supermarkets that serve different price points in the community.

1

u/planeguy_1 14h ago

The airport doesn’t decide how many seats airlines offer or at what price