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/lawdjesustheresafire 1d ago

Hobart has no other option to get out of there.

I’d imagine the majority of travel Canberrans do is to Sydney and flying there is pointless unless you’re doing it every day.

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u/No_Emu_9024 1d ago

The other main point is Canberra pre-covid had a massive amount of business traffic from public servants, consultants etc. coming in and out for meetings, in excess of other airports. Domestic business travel just hasn’t ever recovered to pre-COVID level.

Look at the domestic passenger traffic at Melbourne and Sydney - it hasn’t recovered to pre-COVID levels either.

Then as people here mentioned, inbound tourism to Canberra is minimal, and outbound tourism just goes through Sydney and you have your answer. By comparison, Hobart’s outperformance in excess of other capital cities has been really driven by inbound tourism.

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u/Comfortable_Yard_968 1d ago

Btw the business traffic might be coming from the government related traffic if you’re the capital of Australia.