Brisbane Airport CEO expects a full domestic travel recovery in 2023, exceeding 2019 levels in 2025
Brisbane Airport CEO Gert-Jan de Graaff has forecasted the full recovery of Australia’s domestic travel industry in 2023.
The forecast was part of his recent keynote presentation at Flight Centre Corporate’s free hybrid travel conference #Illuminate2022, which returned in person for the first time in three years.
Ahead of his presentation, Graaff revealed that Australia is very well positioned for a full recovery of its travel industry. He told Mumbrella: “Travel – leisure and business combined – is now at about 90% of pre-COVID levels and we believe that we will be back at 2019 levels in early 2023.
“Airlines need time to restart – some countries are still closed or have restrictions – and we need to rebuild the confidence of passengers to get on flights again. However, I am confident that we will see, from 2025 onwards, volumes that will exceed 2019 levels.
“International travel has also picked up at a slower pace than domestic travel. Currently, we’re back to around 50% of pre-COVID levels.”
Graaff is among several key thought leaders that offered advice, insights and forecasts for business and the travel industry as a whole at Flight Centre Corporate’s annual Illuminate conference held on 20 October. The complementary hybrid event took place in person in Sydney’s Alexandria and was live-streamed nationally for interstate attendees.
The recovery of the leisure and corporate travel sectors
While Brisbane Airport is seeing fewer corporates flying, Graaff believes they will return strongly next year. “What we are seeing now is that people really want to travel.
“They want to come to Australia and visit us for business and leisure. A lot of the corporates haven’t seen their customers and colleagues for the last two and a half years and they’re really keen to get on flights again, develop their businesses and seek new opportunities.”
Graaff explained that Brisbane Airport was able to shield itself from much of the capacity issues and disruptions at other domestic and overseas airports.
“Fortunately, during COVID-19, we did make the conscious decision to not go to ‘rock bottom’ in terms of resourcing – we knew that the market would recover. Thankfully, given our foresight, we never saw wait times much longer than 20 minutes. From a global perspective, this is a great effort.”
A new Brisbane Airport will take shape ahead of the 2032 Games
In his Illuminate presentation, Graaff also revealed some of the exciting changes at Brisbane Airport, as well as promising forecasts in the lead-up to the 2032 Brisbane Games.
Ahead of Games, Graaff said new terminals will be critical. “We are running out of domestic terminal capacity and will require additional international terminal capacity before the Games.
“My biggest prediction is that, when passengers travel in 2032, they will be travelling through a completely new state-of-the-art Brisbane Airport, net zero, or even climate positive Scope 1 and 2, with new mass transport solutions to and from each terminal.”
Brisbane Airport also recently started rolling out new security screening equipment to streamline the process for international passengers. “The new equipment has a lot of advantages, namely, that passengers can keep laptops and liquids in their bags at security checkpoints.
“In the next few years, passengers will also see significant upgrades in our domestic terminal. We are planning to build a mezzanine where our new security checkpoint will be located.
“We are implementing upgrades to allow passengers to move directly from our multi-level car park into the security checkpoint, offering a streamlined entrance into the terminal. A new baggage system will also be introduced, while self-service products and services, such as self-service check-in, are on the way.”
Graaff added there are opportunities for the use of biometrics in other stages of the process at airports, for instance, during check-in. “I’m foreseeing this level of implementation to occur in the next five to ten years. However, it could come earlier because we know the technology is there.”
Illuminate is one of Australia’s corporate travel events, attracting high-calibre keynote speakers, including Australia’s top CEOs, thought leaders, futurists, and economists.
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topics
#Illuminate2022
2032 Brisbane Games
Brisbane Airport CEO
Flight Centre Corporate
Gert-Jan de Graaff
post-covid
Travel Trends
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