Growth in international passenger numbers at Cairns Airport has continued during March 2017, led by a record month for passengers on the direct Osaka and Tokyo routes.
Chief Executive Officer, Norris Carter, said the 32,880 passengers flying on these routes in March was the highest since 2005.
“It is significant that this figure has been reached outside of the traditional peak month for international travel of August,” Mr Carter said. “It reflects the year round growth we are seeing in the numbers of Japanese visiting Cairns and the number of people visiting Japan from Australia.”
“There is also now more connectivity between Korea and Japan supported by Jetstar and Jin Air which is giving people from Korea better year round access into Cairns and helping to meet the demand for our destination from that growing visitor source market.”
“The fact that Easter falls in April this year, rather than March as it did last year, has contributed to the slight drop we saw in our domestic passenger numbers for March 2017. We can expect to see a corresponding boost from Easter travel show up in the passenger numbers we achieve for April.”
Current and historic Cairns Airport passenger numbers and air traffic statistics are available here.