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This chart from Airservices Australia provides a count of aircraft movements at major Australian airports in December 2024. To my surprise, the sequence is very different from that given in List of the busiest airports in Australia#Top 10 airports by aircraft movements, which gives data for all of 2020. For example, YMML is second in 2024 and seventh in 2020 (so it's ahead of YMMB in 2024 but well behind it in 2020), and YPPF is fifth in 2024 and first in 2020. Do there tend to be seasonal variants in aircraft movements (i.e. can we expect the rankings to be very different in June), so December data won't necessarily correspond with one-twelfth of the year-long data? Or have aircraft counts changed significantly in the last four years, so that 2020 data are largely useless for understanding which airports had the most movements in 2025? Since most of the top-movements airports for 2020 are smaller and preferred by general aviation (e.g. YPPF had more than three times the movements of YPAD, the local international airport), if these airports saw seasonal variations, I'd expect them to be higher-placed in summer (since many owners might want to take additional short flights to enjoy warm days) than in winter, whilst big international airports wouldn't be as strongly affected by local conditions. Nyttend (talk) 00:51, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
One obvious factor is that December includes the Christmas season, in which many people likely make trips to visit family that they wouldn't be making as often in other months.
It also isn't obvious to me from your post that you have remembered that December is the middle of Summer in Australia (though likely you have).
These two factors would lead me to expect (without having looked at the data, so I may be dead wrong) that December air traffic would be higher than for most of the rest of the year. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.8.123.129 (talk) 11:50, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If the 2020 counts are actually during 2020, the COVID pandemic had a massive affect on airline travel worldwide. You shouldn't expect it to line up with any other years. 12.116.29.106 (talk) 13:47, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed: From 20 March 2020, travel restrictions have been in place prohibiting travel into Australia of all foreign nationals, unless exempt.[1]
Also 25 March 2020. Australian citizens and permanent residents are banned from leaving the country.[2]
IP and Alansplodge — don't worry, I'm well aware of these factors, as I live in Melbourne; I'll likely drive past Moorabbin Airport today on my way to Costco. Thanks for making sure I was aware :-) Here's a ranking chart, giving each airport's place in the years given in the list, plus each airport's place in December 2024:
Some of these airports' rankings in December 2024 were very different from previous yearly totals, even if we ignore 2020 entirely. To me, the particularly interesting change is YMML going to second (when it was never more than fourth) and overtaking YMMB, plus YSBK falling to a new low, YBBN rising to a new peak, and YPPF falling to 2010 levels. Although existing flights are likely to be much fuller at Christmas, are there really a vast number of additional commercial flights? These figures are restricted to numbers of aircraft movements (i.e. a plane landing or taking off), so changing airline passenger numbers are relevant only when airlines respond by adding or removing/cancelling flights. Plus, the Christmas season would also be relevant to general-aviation-heavy airports like YMMB, since people who own or hire light aircraft will have extra time for flying (and extra desire down here in Melbourne, where summer weather is drier and sunnier than winter weather), and whenever they want to fly, they'll be responsible for additional aircraft movements. For that reason, I'd assume that commercial airports would place lower in December than in winter, but they're higher. Nyttend (talk) 19:37, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2025 February 25
