Overseas trip allure strong for WA
International passenger traffic through Perth Airport jumped 5.5 per cent last year to 4.13 million as West Australians' passion for overseas travel showed no signs of abating.
Singapore, Bali, Doha, Johannesburg and Kuala Lumpur were big winners, while Thailand suffered a 20 per cent drop in traffic.
The figures contained in the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics report International Airline Activity 2014 reveal that Australia-wide international scheduled passenger traffic last year climbed to 33.089 million, compared with 31.345 million in 2013.
Qantas had the biggest share of the market with 15.9 per cent, followed by Emirates with 9.7 per cent, Singapore Airlines with 8.7 per cent, Jetstar with 8.3 per cent and Virgin Australia with 7.8 per cent.
Compared with 2004, the Qantas Group's share (Qantas and Jetstar) has fallen 8 per cent, while Emirates' share has increased 5 per cent and Virgin Australia's share has jumped 6.2 percentage points.
According to the BITRE report in 2014, low-cost carriers AirAsia X, Cebu Pacific Air, Indonesia Air-Asia, Jetstar, Jetstar Asia, Scoot and Tigerair together accounted for 16.4 per cent of international passenger traffic, up 2 per cent on the previous year.
From Perth, the Singapore route again dominated the numbers with more than one million passengers and this route was the fourth busiest international connection from Australia.
Bali - with Lombok - again topped the popularity stakes for purely holiday traffic, up 4.48 per cent to just over 900,000 travelling to and from the tropical islands.
Perth to Bali is also Australia's 10th busiest international route.
The big surprise was Kuala Lumpur, with a jump of 11.4 per cent to 554,000 despite all the negative publicity surrounding the disappearance of Flight MH370.
Another standout was Johannesburg, with passenger traffic up 12.3 per cent, while the biggest increase was Doha served by Qatar Airways, with traffic leaping 21 per cent.
The big loser was Thailand because of political unrest last year.
Traffic to both Bangkok and Phuket was down 20 per cent.
However, the situation has now reversed with stability returning.
New Zealand continued to be a strong drawcard with Air New Zealand launching a seasonal service to Christchurch.
Overall, traffic was up almost 10 per cent and is set to climb further with the airline adding a new daylight service to Auckland from December that will connect with US destinations. Another winner was Etihad Airways, which carried 75,000 passengers after it launched a daily service to Abu Dhabi in July.
