NEW ZEALAND. Total numbers up strongly, Japanese and South Korean visitors way down. That was the story of Auckland Airport’s May passenger statistics which showed a +9.2% increase in international passenger volumes to 595,136. Excluding transits, international passenger movements rose +8.5% to 514,818.
Japanese arrivals, so important to travel retail, collapsed by -51.1% in the wake of that country’s recent earthquake and tsunami. Korean arrivals, also key to Auckland Airport’s commercial revenues, were affected by earthquakes both in neighbouring Japan and in the southern New Zealand city of Christchurch, slumping -29.4%.
Importantly though, Chinese arrivals gained +17.4%, maintaining a powerful upwards momentum that has generated a +26.2% year-on-year increase on a financial year-to-date basis.
Domestic passengers increased by +1.3% over May 2010. However the market did see a -2.2% capacity decrease compared to last May, the airport explained.
Australian traffic to Auckland increased +8.5%, benefiting from additional capacity on Auckland-Cairns. Singapore traffic increased by +53.9% with Jetstar Asia adding approximately 19,700 seats to the market. But the important UK market was soft, falling -9.1%.
International passenger numbers through Queenstown Airport (in which Auckland Airport has an interest) in the deep south of New Zealand have grown +53.2% this financial year to date on a +50.0% increase in aircraft movements. This increase has mainly been driven by Jetstar’s expanded operations from December 2010.
At Cairns Airport in Australia (another Auckland Airport holding) international passenger numbers rose +5.5% to 55,861.
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