Total monthly arrivals to Australia since 1976

Aviation in Australia began in 1920 with the formation of Qantas, which became the flag carrier of Australia. The Australian National Airways (ANA) was the predominant domestic carrier from the mid-1930s to the early 1950s. After World War II, Qantas was nationalised and its domestic operations were transferred to Trans Australia Airlines (TAA) in 1946. The Two Airlines Policy was formally established in 1952 to ensure the viability of both airlines. However, ANA's leadership was quickly eroded by TAA, and it was acquired by Ansett Transport Industries in 1957. The duopoly continued for the next four decades. In the mid-1990s TAA was merged with Qantas and later privatised. Ansett collapsed in September 2001. In the following years, Virgin Australia became a challenger to Qantas. Both companies launched low-cost subsidiaries Jetstar and Tigerair Australia, respectively.

Overseas flights from Australia to United Kingdom via the Eastern Hemisphere are known as the Kangaroo Route,[1] whereas flights via the Western Hemisphere are known as the Southern Cross Route. Qantas began international passenger flights in May 1935. In 1948, the first commercial flight from Australia to Africa was flown by Qantas, launching what is known as the Wallaby Route.[2][3] In 1954, the first flight from Australia to North America was completed, as a 60-passenger Qantas aircraft connected Sydney with San Francisco and Vancouver, having fuel stops at Fiji, Canton Island and Hawaii. In 1982, a Pan Am airplane first flew non-stop from Los Angeles to Sydney. A non-stop flight between Australia and Europe was first completed in March 2018 from Perth to London.

History

Until World War II

Air routes of Australia in 1925

In 1934, Qantas and Britain's Imperial Airways (a forerunner of British Airways) formed a new company, Qantas Empire Airways Limited (QEA),[4] which commenced operations in December 1934, flying between Brisbane and Darwin. QEA flew internationally from May 1935, when the service from Darwin was extended to Singapore, and Imperial Airways operated the rest of the service through to London.[5] Australian National Airways (ANA) was established in 1936 by a consortium of British-financed Australian shipowners.

Until World War II, Australia had been one of the world's leading centres of aviation. With its tiny population of about seven million, Australia ranked sixth in the world for scheduled air mileage, had 16 airlines, was growing at twice the world average, and had produced a number of prominent aviation pioneers, including Lawrence Hargrave, Harry Hawker, Bert Hinkler, Lawrence Wackett, the Reverend John Flynn, Sidney Cotton, Keith Virtue and Charles Kingsford Smith. Governments on both sides of politics, well aware of the immense stretches of uninhabitable desert that separated the small productive regions of Australia, regarded air transport as a matter of national importance. In the words of Arthur Brownlow Corbett, Director General of Civil Aviation:

A nation which refuses to use flying in its national life must necessarily today be a backward and defenceless nation.[6]

Air transport was encouraged both with direct subsidies and with mail contracts. Immediately before the start of the war, more than half of all airline passenger and freight miles were subsidised.

However, after 1939 and especially after Japan's invasion of the islands to the north in 1941, civil aviation was sacrificed to military needs. During the war, most of the Qantas fleet of ten was taken over by the Australian government for war service and enemy action and accidents destroyed half of the fleet.[7]

Post World War II

By the end of the Second World War, there were only nine domestic airlines remaining, eight smaller regional concerns and Australian National Airways (ANA), a conglomerate owned by British and Australian shipping interests which had a virtual monopoly on the major trunk routes and received 85% of all government air transport subsidies.

The Chifley Government's view was summed up by Minister for Air, Arthur Drakeford: "Where are the great pioneers of aviation? ..... We discover that one by one the small pioneer enterprises are disappearing from the register. It is the inevitable process of absorption by a monopoly." Air transport, the government believed, was primarily a public service, like hospitals, the railways or the post office. If there was to be a monopoly at all, then it should be one owned by the public and working in the public interest.

In August 1945, only two days after the end of World War II, the Australian parliament passed the Australian National Airways Bill, which set up the Australian National Airways Commission (ANAC) and charged it with the task of reconstructing the nation's air transport industry. In keeping with the Labor government's socialist leanings, the bill declared that licences of private operators would lapse for those routes that were adequately serviced by the national carrier. From this time on, it seemed, air transport in Australia would be a government monopoly. However, a legal challenge (Australian National Airways Pty Ltd v Commonwealth), backed by the Liberal opposition and business interests generally, was successful and in December 1945, the High Court ruled that the Commonwealth did not have the power to prevent the issue of airline licences to private companies. The government could set up an airline if it wished, but it could not legislate a monopoly. Much of the press objected strongly to the setting up of a public airline network, seeing it as a form of socialisation by stealth.

The bill was suitably amended to remove the monopoly provisions, and ANAC came into existence in February 1946. ANAC formed Trans Australia Airlines (TAA) in 1946, and nationalised Qantas in 1947. Qantas's domestic operations, in Queensland, were transferred to TAA, while Qantas continued as an international airline. Shortly later, QEA began its first services outside the British Empire, to Tokyo,[8] and services to Hong Kong began around the same time.

Two Airlines Policy

However, ANA's leadership in Australia's aviation was quickly being eroded by TAA, so in 1952, the Menzies Government formally established the "Two Airlines Policy", to ensure the viability of both major airlines, the government-owned TAA and the privately owned ANA. In reality, it ensured the survival of the private airline ANA.

Under the policy, only two airlines were allowed to operate flights between state capital cities and major regional city airports. The Two Airlines Policy was in fact a legal barrier to new entrants to the Australian aviation market. It restricted intercapital services to the two major domestic carriers. This anti-competitive arrangement ensured that they carried approximately the same number of passengers, charged the same fares and had similar fleet sizes and equipment.

Ivan Holyman, managing director of ANA and its main driving force, died in 1957. The five British shipping companies that owned the airline had been trying to get out for several years, and offered to sell out to the government, in order that ANA merge with TAA and some smaller airlines.[9] The government declined. Later that year, ANA was acquired by the much smaller Ansett Airways, and the duopoly would continue for the next four decades.

Deregulation

Deregulation of aviation in Australia commenced in the late 1980s.

In 1986 Trans-Australia Airlines was renamed Australian Airlines,[10] which merged in September 1992 with Qantas. Qantas was gradually privatised between 1993 and 1997.[11][12][13] The legislation allowing privatisation requires Qantas to be at least 51% owned by Australian shareholders.

In 1988, the Australian Government formed the Federal Airports Corporation (FAC), placing 22 airports around the nation under its operational control. In April 1994, the Government announced that all airports operated by FAC would be privatised in several phases.[14]

Virgin Australia was launched as Virgin Blue in August 2000. The timing of Virgin Blue's entry into the Australian market was fortuitous as it was able to fill the vacuum created by the collapse of Ansett Australia in September 2001. In the following years, Virgin Australia became a challenger to Qantas. Both companies launched low-cost subsidiaries: Qantas formed Jetstar in 2003 and Virgin acquired Tigerair Australia in 2013.

Statistics

Top 30 routes by annual passenger numbers

Data retrieved from Department of Infrastructure, Regional Development and Cities[15]
RankCity 1City 2 Distance (km) 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
1Victoria (state) MelbourneNew South Wales Sydney 707 7,008,000 7,088,600 7,901,100 7,727,500 8,047,700 8,244,000 8,316,900 8,613,400 8,904,700 9,097,100
2Queensland BrisbaneNew South Wales Sydney 752 4,306,500 4,295,800 4,397,500 4,406,000 4,390,700 4,425,100 4,448,100 4,476,200 4,658,100 4,736,300
3Queensland BrisbaneVictoria (state) Melbourne 1379 2,688,500 2,706,200 3,020,200 3,090,400 3,189,600 3,198,800 3,317,100 3,353,800 3,493,300 3,541,100
4Queensland Gold CoastNew South Wales Sydney 679 2,164,800 2,148,000 2,405,000 2,244,800 2,440,600 2,559,100 2,595,200 2,618,300 2,704,400 2,740,700
5South Australia AdelaideVictoria (state) Melbourne 642 2,122,700 2,103,800 2,271,400 2,186,700 2,085,200 2,195,100 2,272,000 2,311,000 2,393,900 2,456,400
6Victoria (state) MelbourneWestern Australia Perth 2705 1,772,200 1,724,900 1,736,400 1,855,900 2,130,700 2,290,700 2,160,700 2,138,900 2,072,900 2,033,200
7Queensland Gold CoastVictoria (state) Melbourne 1328 1,673,500 1,615,800 1,767,600 1,671,300 1,790,700 1,675,400 1,754,000 1,812,300 1,966,100 2,012,600
8South Australia AdelaideNew South Wales Sydney 1167 1,589,100 1,600,200 1,785,700 1,722,700 1,751,200 1,751,900 1,813,000 1,831,500 1,872,000 1,898,300
9Western Australia PerthNew South Wales Sydney 3285 1,493,200 1,465,100 1,622,700 1,731,700 1,811,400 1,800,400 1,798,900 1,760,900 1,753,700 1,716,500
10Tasmania HobartVictoria (state) Melbourne 616 1,157,800 1,202,300 1,231,900 1,157,900 1,239,100 1,388,800 1,400,100 1,493,600 1,555,500 1,630,300
11Queensland BrisbaneQueensland Cairns 1387 1,196,500 1,154,800 1,153,800 1,108,000 1,187,000 1,199,600 1,256,100 1,307,000 1,346,900 1,377,900
12Australian Capital Territory CanberraVictoria (state) Melbourne 470 1,068,500 1,093,800 1,038,000 1,065,200 1,003,100 994,500 972,300 984,200 1,026,100 1,133,000
13Queensland CairnsNew South Wales Sydney 1967 940,300 832,900 876,800 894,300 933,900 978,600 1,000,900 1,032,600 1,115,300 1,129,300
14Queensland BrisbaneWestern Australia Perth 3615 683,400 718,000 755,100 867,500 951,500 1,017,700 1,062,000 1,007,800 984,100 969,100
15Queensland BrisbaneQueensland Townsville 1110 968,700 942,600 941,100 977,400 994,200 957,500 948,200 965,300 976,600 960,200
16Australian Capital Territory CanberraNew South Wales Sydney 237 959,500 1,021,800 1,096,200 1,069,100 1,053,200 1,027,600 968,200 946,800 959,400 949,200
17Tasmania LauncestonVictoria (state) Melbourne 476 842,900 832,800 838,200 790,500 835,800 872,800 878,300 880,500 918,000 923,200
18South Australia AdelaideQueensland Brisbane 1621 660,300 637,000 717,100 679,800 729,200 747,500 776,700 792,800 830,300 849,600
19Queensland CairnsVictoria (state) Melbourne 2305 482,200 389,800 451,100 504,800 581,700 677,600 711,800 770,600 823,400 841,300
20Queensland BrisbaneQueensland Mackay 795 727,100 735,900 798,000 908,900 964,900 863,500 746,400 696,400 678,500 697,900
21Tasmania HobartNew South Wales Sydney 1038 458,700 490,300 502,800 472,800 477,900 517,200 536,400 546,300 616,600 655,900
22South Australia AdelaideWestern Australia Perth 2120 577,600 626,000 599,000 592,500 621,700 624,300 616,400 611,000 617,100 614,100
23Queensland BrisbaneAustralian Capital Territory Canberra 954 609,500 604,500 612,700 620,500 605,400 583,000 560,200 558,200 576,100 594,300
24Queensland BrisbaneNew South Wales Newcastle 613 529,300 564,300 579,100 582,200 591,800 583,700 570,300 543,700 574,000 590,700
25Queensland Sunshine CoastNew South Wales Sydney 835 477,600 446,700 460,300 475,100 463,300 464,600 464,100 481,800 539,800 582,700
26Queensland BrisbaneQueensland Rockhampton 517 569,600 600,600 643,900 606,400 644,400 636,100 612,600 587,800 563,800 522,100
27Victoria (state) MelbourneQueensland Sunshine Coast 1452 452,100 412,300 403,200 382,000 324,600 392,200 397,600 406,000 441,800 485,800
28Victoria (state) MelbourneNew South Wales Newcastle 835 416,800 369,000 370,700 429,700 425,200 437,500 434,900 443,000 449,500 476,100
29Western Australia KarrathaWestern Australia Perth 1247 - 518,300 587,100 646,100 762,500 722,100 685,200 600,200 490,600 436,900
30Queensland BrisbaneNorthern Territory Darwin 2850 341,600 381,600 367,200 366,000 367,000 375,900 391,500 396,200 407,700 406,200

Busiest airports

Domestic Airport passenger numbers are calculated by the Department of Infrastructure and Transport and include passenger numbers from the major domestic airlines only; these being Qantas, Virgin Australia, Jetstar and Tiger Australia. Rex Airlines, QantasLink and similar airlines are considered to be regional airlines and are not included in these figures.

Monthly
Busiest Airports by Domestic Passenger Numbers
Month of March 2015[16]
RankAirportStateTotal
Mar 2014
Total
Mar 2015
Monthly
Change %
1.Sydney AirportNew South Wales New South Wales2,154,2002,209,600Increase2.6
2.Melbourne AirportVictoria (state) Victoria1,974,7002,055,400Increase4.1
3.Brisbane AirportQueensland Queensland1,402,7001,390,600Decrease0.9
4.Perth AirportWestern Australia Western Australia731,600713,200Decrease2.5
5.Adelaide AirportSouth Australia South Australia581,300585,100Increase0.7
6.Gold Coast AirportQueensland Queensland398,100400,000Increase0.5
7.Cairns AirportQueensland Queensland278,000284,900Increase2.5
8.Canberra AirportAustralian Capital Territory Australian Capital Territory250,400252,000Increase0.7
9.Hobart AirportTasmania Tasmania192,300199,200Increase3.6
10.Darwin AirportNorthern Territory Northern Territory128,300125,800Decrease1.9
Yearly
Busiest Airports by Domestic Passenger Numbers
FY 2016-2017[17]
RankAirportStateFY 2015-16FY 2016-17Change %
1Sydney AirportNew South Wales New South Wales26,587,00027,077,700Increase1.8
2Melbourne AirportVictoria (state) Victoria24,482,70024,996,800Increase2.1
3Brisbane AirportQueensland Queensland17,013,20017,102,600Increase0.5
4Perth AirportWestern Australia Western Australia8,285,9008,029,500Decrease3.1
5Adelaide AirportSouth Australia South Australia6,922,0007,049,200Increase1.8
6Gold Coast AirportQueensland Queensland5,256,4005,362,800Increase2.0
7Cairns AirportQueensland Queensland4,141,8004,283,300Increase3.4
8Canberra AirportAustralian Capital Territory Australian Capital Territory2,816,0002,932,800Increase4.1
9Hobart AirportTasmania Tasmania2,312,9002,440,800Increase5.5
10Darwin AirportNorthern Territory Northern Territory1,783,7001,809,400Increase1.4

See also

References

  1. "Post war aviation 1945-1958". Qantas. Retrieved 27 April 2023.
  2. Qantas celebrates 60 years of flying to South Africa, retrieved 24 April 2023
  3. "Indian Ocean Route - Qantas to Fly Direct Australia|South Africa Services: Cocos Base Re-constructed". Flight: The Aircraft Engineer. IPC Transport Press Limited. 1952. p. 78.
  4. "The Move to Brisbane". Our Company. Qantas. Archived from the original on 9 October 2006. Retrieved 16 December 2006.
  5. "Venturing Overseas". Our Company. Qantas. Archived from the original on 9 October 2006. Retrieved 16 December 2006.
  6. "ANAC – Beginning of TAA". 12 May 2009. Archived from the original on 8 March 2010. Retrieved 28 July 2010.
  7. "The World at War". Our Company. Qantas. Archived from the original on 9 October 2006. Retrieved 16 December 2006.
  8. "Post War Expansion". Our Company. Qantas. Archived from the original on 9 October 2006. Retrieved 16 December 2006.
  9. Grant, J. R. A False Dawn? Australian National Airways Air Enthusiast magazine article July–August 1997 No.70 pp. 22–24
  10. "World airline directory – Qantas Airways". Flight International. 143 (4362): 117. 24–30 March 1993. ISSN 0015-3710. Archived from the original on 5 November 2012.
  11. The Hon R. Willis, Answer to a Question without Notice, House of Representatives Debates, 13 May 1993, p.775.
  12. Commonwealth of Australia Budget Statements 1996–97, Budget Paper no. 3, p. 3-191.
  13. Ian Thomas, '"Luck" played a key part in float success', Australian Financial Review, 31 July 1995.
  14. Frost & Sullivan (25 April 2006). "Airport Privatisation". MarketResearch.com. Retrieved 20 July 2008.
  15. Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (23 March 2018). "Australian Domestic Aviation Activity Annual Publications". Retrieved 16 May 2018.
  16. Australian Domestic Aviation Activity Monthly Publications - Monthly
  17. Airport traffic data - Yearly

Bibliography

  • Grant, Jim. "From Theory to Production: Australian Aviation Development 1870 to 1939". Air Enthusiast, No. 83, September–October 1999, pp. 58–61. ISSN 0143-5450
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