Australian airports report a blockbuster December 2025

By Andrew Curran.

Australian airports are reporting record passengers for December 2025 and, in some cases, record passenger numbers for the year.

Five major Australian airports have recently released monthly and annual data that shows that Australia's biggest airports have shaken off the Covid-19 hangover and are now exceeding pre-pandemic levels.

Melbourne (MEL), Brisbane (BNE), Gold Coast (OOL), and Launceston (LST) all reported record-breaking passenger traffic in December, while Brisbane, Perth (PER), and Launceston all said 2025, in terms of passenger numbers, was their busiest year ever.

“Passenger numbers reached record highs,” said Perth Airport CEO Jason Waters.

According to Australian Government data, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Coolangatta/Gold Coast, and Launceston are Australia’s second, third, fourth, sixth, and eleventh busiest airports, respectively, as measured by passenger traffic.

International growth at Melbourne Airport

In December 2024, Melbourne Airport, Australia’s second busiest airport, processed 3,240,049 passengers. In December 2025, that number grew 4.9% to 3,421,195 passengers, including 2,198,625 domestic and 1,222,570 international passengers.

“December was a huge month for us, with Delta Air Lines, Hong Kong Airlines and Shenzhen Airlines all launching flights to Melbourne Airport for the first time,” said Melbourne Airport Chief of Aviation, Jim Parashos. “January is also shaping as a busy month.”

Australia’s third busiest airport, Brisbane, claims a record day, month, and year. On October 6, the domestic airport handled a daily record of 64,015 passengers while on December 20, the separate international terminal processed a record 26,111 passengers.

In December, Brisbane Airport saw a record 2.3 million passengers move through its terminals and across calendar 2025, the airport handled a record 25 million passengers.

“In 2025, we didn’t just break the daily record in the international terminal which has stood since 2020, we smashed it,” said Brisbane Airport CEO Gert‑Jan de Graaff. “That kind of jump in passenger numbers demonstrates the momentum building at Brisbane Airport and mirrors the momentum building right across South-East Queensland.”

Perth Airport traffic grows by over one million passengers

Over in Western Australia, annual passenger numbers at Perth Airport came in at 18.026 million, comfortably surpassing last year’s previous record of 16.9 million.

International passenger traffic was up 12.5% to a record high of 5.4 million, and intrastate flying, primarily fly-in-fly-out flying for the mining sector but also some regular passenger transport routes, clocked up a record 6.2 million passengers.

“Passenger numbers reached record highs, with more than 18 million travellers passing through our terminals in 2025 – representing a 6.6% increase on the previous year,” said Waters. “The resources sector remains a key driver of regional passenger numbers, but tourism and business travel is now having a bigger influence, reflected in the stronger interstate and international traveller numbers.”

Australia’s busiest non-capital city airport, Coolangatta/Gold Coast, processed a record 660,500 passengers in December, substantially up on the 566,169 passengers that passed through the airport in December 2024.

Notably, more New Zealanders travelled through Coolangatta/Gold Coast Airport last month than any other December on record. Over 60,500 flew on one of the airport's six trans-Tasman routes. Coolangatta/Gold Coast Airport has more Australia – New Zealand city pairs than any other airport, mostly serviced by Jetstar. Across 2025, over 6.2 million passengers moved through the airport.

“Our focus continues to be on improving connectivity across all the regions we operate and these results for Gold Coast Airport are largely driven by the increased capacity and new routes added to the airport’s network last year,” said Queensland Airports Limited CEO Amelia Evans. “Overall, we saw 14% growth in international passenger numbers in 2025 compared to the year prior, which is a very positive sign.“

Record December for Launceston Airport

Meanwhile, the smallest airport to issue data for December, Launceston, says the month “capped off a milestone year.”

Australia’s eleventh busiest airport and the only purely domestic airport canvassed by this article, handled 146,682 passengers in December and 1,465,930 passengers throughout 2025.

“Last year was transformative for Launceston Airport with significant investment in our airfield, terminal and network, reinforcing our position as one of Tasmania's key economic enablers and there’s no sign of things slowing down,” said Launceston Airport CEO Katie Cooper

Additionally, Launceston Airport is getting set for its busiest day on record later this month when a concert in the city is expected to see over 25,000 passengers move through the airport over a single weekend.

Jetstar is deploying bigger planes to Launceston and Qantas is adding six extra flights from Sydney (SYD), Melbourne and Brisbane - adding 1,500 seats into Launceston over the period.

 “We expect Friday before the Australia Day long weekend will be our single busiest day in history,” said Cooper.

Aero South Pacific will release its Airport Briefs later this month. The Airport Briefs will offer readers a handy snapshot of Australia’s top 20 busiest airports, including a summary of airlines servicing each airport, direct city links, and weekly airline frequency information along with individual city link and aircraft data.

Photo: Launceston Airport.

Contact the writer: andrew@aerosouthpacific.com