Sydney Airport Set For Bumper Holidays And Incentivises Baggage Handlers

It is certainly going to be a Merry Christmas for the owners of Australia’s Sydney Airport as they have their busiest holiday season in four years. Traffic in both the international and domestic terminals will be close to pre-COVID levels, with overseas passengers up by 34% compared to last year.

The tide has turned at Sydney Airport

Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport (SYD) is ready to welcome around 2.6 million passengers during the three-week Christmas and summer holiday peak season. Between December 14 and January 3, 2024, the airport forecasts 500,000 more passengers will pass through its terminals than in the same period last year.

Photo: Kurt Ams

The international recovery has really sped up in the second half of this year and during the holidays Sydney Airport expects 1.1 million passengers through the T1 international terminal, an increase of 300,000 or 34% year-on-year (YoY) increase. In the domestic terminals, there will be around 1.5 million passengers passing through in those three weeks, adding an extra 200,000 or 16% more than last year.

On those forecasts, the holiday traffic will reach a 95% recovery to pre-COVID 2019 levels and new Sydney Airport CEO Scott Charlton said his teams are ready to welcome travelers for the airport’s biggest holiday period in four years and that international travel is booming and almost back to pre-pandemic levels.

“We are delighted to have so many people taking off to see loved ones and explore this great country. While it’s great to see many Australians heading away, we’re also excited to welcome an influx of overseas visitors who are choosing to enjoy a summer getaway in Sydney.

“Airline capacity is now back to full strength, or beyond, to many key international destinations including the United States, China, South Korea, Indonesia and Vietnam. This is the first Christmas holiday since 2019 that the border with mainland China is open and with seat capacity back to pre-COVOD levels as we head into 2024.”

A bonus for speedy bag delivery

With full terminals again, Sydney Airport has launched a new incentive program aimed at speeding up the delivery of passenger bags to carousels. The program involves creating an AU$250,000 ($168,000) monthly pool to be shared amongst ground handling companies that deliver bags to carousels faster at baggage reclaim in the T1 international terminal.

Photo: Travel man | Shutterstock

Ground handling companies, such as Swissport and dnata are contracted by airlines rather than the airport. Sydney Airport has taken this innovative approach to encourage consistency and to promote a better passenger experience at this final stage of an often long and tiring journey to Australia. The longer-term goal is to ensure no passenger waits for more than ten minutes at a baggage carousel.

The airport is also focusing on reducing service times for international passengers transferring to domestic flights, which involves free travel to the domestic terminals on the opposite side of the airfield. It said that by adding new dedicated transfer check-in facilities and new signage at key locations in the international terminal it has reduced transfer time.

Of course, for most passengers, the biggest bugbear is the security screening process and this is often exacerbated in Australia where the rules change at different airports, or sometimes within the same airport, on what needs to be removed from carry-on luggage. Sydney Airport has managed to reduce screening wait times and since the start of this year 95% of domestic passengers and 90% of international passengers have passed through security within five minutes.