COVID and Aviation: Were There Any Winners?

If you’ve been to the airport lately, you’d know it’s a changed experience to years gone by. Members of the White Box team have been there for personal and business reasons in recent times, and compared stories.

While passenger numbers are inching upwards, the airport ambience is different, with more casual and holiday travellers compared to the past; the familiar buzz of business fliers between the two major cities is decidedly sedate. With the extra COVID screening hoops to jump through, and the rise in acceptance of virtual meetings, perhaps it’s no surprise.

What struck us though was the diversity of destinations on the departures board. Instead of the routine domination of Australia’s big two metros, other capitals and smaller regional centres were more prominent in the mix.

While we found this curious, no one thought much else of it. That was until someone mentioned how a few of their friends had all moved up to Queensland in the last 12 months, after living in Sydney their entire lives.

Together, these two scenarios piqued our interest

As phenomena like these tend to do, being data people.

So, we posed a question: have there been winners out of the COVID pandemic?

Being the inquisitive bunch we are, we decided to dig a little deeper, and this is what the data told us.

Something interesting happened in the wake of COVID flight cancellations

When the pandemic locked down the country in March 2020, flight cancellations understandably sent monthly passenger numbers plummeting, and it wasn’t until the Christmas period in 2020 that we saw any substantial rise in those numbers again.

When April 2021 rolled around, it soon became the busiest month for domestic airlines since the beginning of the pandemic, with 3.5 million passengers taking to the skies. Driven by optimism around the ‘end of COVID’, cheap fares and Easter holidays enticed travellers anew, and was most evident across NSW and Victorian routes.

However, it wasn’t long before monthly passenger numbers fell once again, as a new round of lockdowns took their toll on Victoria and NSW.

At this point, flights were being cancelled at a similar rate to the beginning of the pandemic.

And for the first time, Sydney did not appear in the top 10 busiest routes in Australia.

The thing we found most interesting was that, with the cancellation of flights to and from the COVID hotspot areas of Sydney and Melbourne, it appears our domestic airlines started to focus on bringing more regional areas to their flight map to stay afloat.

These regional routes then started becoming more popular than the major metro routes still in lockdown, and suddenly, a spotlight was shone on many of these less travelled destinations for the first time.

At the same time, Sydneysiders and Melburnians were leaving their cities ‘in droves’

While collecting our data, we came across this 7news article that outlined how, at the height of the lockdowns across Sydney and Melbourne, people were getting out at a rate of knots.

In fact, according to the article’s sources, Melbourne experienced a net annual migration of -54% up to November 2021, while Sydney saw a net annual migration of
-47% over the same period.

A note on net migration: This compares the months Arrivals and Departures, so for example, if Sydney had 15k Arrivals and 22k Departures, the net migration would be -7k (-46.7%).

What’s interesting is that, at the same time, Brisbane enjoyed a net annual migration rate of +78%, and places like the Sunshine Coast, Gold Coast, Bundaberg, Rockhampton and Cairns also proved popular for those after a change.

So, it’s fair to say this…

Australia’s regional centres were the real winners of all of this

It seems that this correlation between flight cancellations in the major cities and the increased number of flights to less travelled areas is quite clear.

The flight cancellations allowed our domestic airlines to offer more exposure to regional areas – creating something of a silver lining for these places in the wake of the pandemic.

Not only have these destinations become more popular with travellers, but many people have now decided to live there as well.

This has no doubt been helped by the fact that remote working arrangements brought on by the pandemic have now enabled more Australians to leave the major metro areas and find a better work-life balance in the regions.

Of course, when it comes to Sydney and Melbourne, they appear to be the ones that have lost out in all of this, but don’t worry, we’re still here, and we’ve still got plenty of love for our two largest cities – especially given the opportunities we get to work with and help the businesses around us to succeed.

That’s why we specialise in data visualisation at White Box

Data is essential to success in the modern world, but without effective understanding, it can become a dead weight on the back of your business. To truly grow, you need unbiased clarity, and that only comes with the right approach to data analysis and visualisation.

So, whether you're combing through aviation statistics or going over your own data and wondering “what does this all mean?”, our team can help you to draw out the true insights so that you have business-ready information to make well-informed decisions.

Get in touch today for your initial data strategy consultation.