Holiday-makers have flocked to and from the Gold Coast this festive season, with fresh figures revealing the city’s airport has experienced its busiest summer in three years.
Since the beginning of December, almost one million passengers have travelled through Gold Coast Airport, with more than 20,000 people on a single day during the peak.
It has capped off a massive year, with more than 5.7 million passengers moving through the terminal in 2022.
Queensland Airports CEO Amelia Evans says the numbers tell a strong post-covid recovery story.
“The number of passengers through Gold Coast Airport in December 2022 was double what we saw in December 2021,” Ms Evans said.
Gold Coast Airport also marked another post-covid record last month, with the highest number of international passengers since 2019.
“Last year brought about its own new challenges, as borders reopened and travel quickly ramped back up, our team worked hard and fast to rebuild interstate and overseas connections,” Ms Evans said.
“It was also the year we opened our brand-new international terminal, after more than three years of construction and over a decade in the planning,” she said.
“The addition of that new terminal over the summer holidays has been invaluable in facilitating smooth passenger flow in terminal during peak periods.”
Despite the end of the holiday season, the momentum is expected to continue over the next few weeks.
“Summer school holidays came to end on January 22, however steady passenger numbers are expected to continue for the rest of the month, particularly with the upcoming Australia Day public holiday and Lunar New Year celebrations,” Ms Evans said.
“The Chinese visitor market is extremely important for us, in 2019 the Gold Coast was the third most popular Australian city for Chinese visitors”.
In another boost for tourism, Gold Coast Airport will also welcome two additional overseas connections to its network early this year.
Virgin Australia will soon launch its first Gold Coast to Bali flight in March, before AirAsia X’s Kuala Lumpur route will touch down on the Gold Coast in early April.
