Travellers in states celebrating the Queen’s Birthday long weekend are battling long queues as Melbourne and Sydney airports return to pre-pandemic levels.
Key points:
- About 97,000 travellers are set to move through Melbourne Airport on Friday, the highest number since the pandemic hit
- Airports are urging domestic travellers to arrive two hours before their flights
- Staff shortages are exacerbating the delays, with thousands of job vacancies across the country
New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory, Victoria, Northern Territory, South Australia and Tasmania will all mark the day on Monday, June 13, giving many a three-day weekend.
As the south-east shivers through a colder-than-average winter, travellers in Victoria appear to be heading north for warmer weather.
Melbourne Airport said it was expecting about 97,000 travellers to pass through its terminals on Friday alone — its busiest day since the pandemic hit.
That’s more than the 90,000 passengers who passed through on Good Friday, a day of travel chaos for the country.
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Melbourne Airport spokesperson Andrew Lund said travellers should plan to arrive early.
“Certainly some check-in areas have been quite busy this morning,” he said about 8am.
“We’re advising people to arrive between one and two hours ahead of a domestic flight and two to three hours ahead of international flights.”
Road traffic into the airport was also heavy on Friday morning.
In Sydney, traffic had already banked up by 6am, with queues snaking through the entire building. At one terminal, the security screening line wrapped around outside.
About 80,000 travellers are expected to pass through the Sydney building on Friday, back to what would be expected on an average long weekend before the pandemic struck.
Some travellers told the ABC they had missed their flights, despite arriving on time.
Airports need to fill thousands of job vacancies
Airport authorities are hoping it is not a repeat of the Easter weekend, which saw protracted delays, cancelled flights and missing luggage amid widespread staff shortages across the country.
Daily COVID-19 cases have dropped since the Easter peak, and close contact rules have been relaxed, freeing up more staff.
But Sydney Airport currently has job vacancies for about 5,000 people across about 800 organisations. Its CEO says about 15,000 jobs were lost when the pandemic first hit.
It will host a “jobs fair” from next week in a bid to fill the roles and avoid chaos during the upcoming school holidays.
Melbourne Airport is also facing staff shortages, particularly in baggage handling.
Unions have said the pandemic exposed the vulnerabilities in the aviation sector and have called for more security for workers.
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