Travel updates: Warning of huge delays at airports after Easter long weekend
Parts of Australia are bracing for major airport delays with some domestic travellers urged to arrive well before their flight.
Queensland is bracing for impact as more than 55,000 passengers are expected to move through Brisbane airports’ domestic terminals on Monday.
Brisbane Airport’s head of public affairs Stephen Beckett told travellers to arrive at least two hours early following the Easter holiday weekend and school break wrap up.
“We are advising travellers to arrive two hours early, check in online if they can and to have their luggage pre-ready for security,” Mr Beckett said.
“It will be busy right through the day. We are expecting extraordinarily numbers.”
Mr Beckett said for the first time in years, the Queensland tourism industry have enjoyed a bumper Easter break as crowds move through the airport bringing in around $2bn to the state’s economy.
Airport terminals in Queensland are heaving as the Palaszczuk government launched its first tourism campaign, aimed to attract New Zealanders to the sunshine state in the cooler months, on Monday.
Tourism Minister Stirling Hinchliffe said New Zealand was one of the state’s most important international visitor markets in a press conference on Monday, with New Zealander making up the second largest market for visitor arrivals into Australia in 2019.
Mr Hinchliffe said the state government and Tourism and Events Queensland have teamed up with Air New Zealand and Ignite Travel to offer up flight and holiday deals.
“With quarantine-free travel to Queensland for Covid-19 vaccinated visitors and New Zealand lifting travel restrictions, there’s never been a better time remind Kiwis about visitor experiences found only in Queensland,” he said.
Brisbane Airport Corporation’s executive general manager Rachel Crowley said more than 1.5m passengers flew between Brisbane and New Zealand pre pandemic in 2019.
Ms Crowley said flights from Auckland, Christchurch Queenstown and Wellington had the potential to pump $1m back into the state’s economy in a press conference on Monday.
“International travel and international passengers are really important to our return to domestic travel and there’s no question over the last couple of years we’ve faced financial impacts.” she said.
As Australians take to the sky Brisbane airport can expect to continue to exceed the pre-Covid average of 40,000 passengers per day.
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