Tamworth airport has busiest year in history and pushes for more destinations

Just shy of 200,000 passengers travelled through Tamworth in the last financial year, and now there’s a push for to get airlines to look at additional destinations, including Melbourne, Canberra and the Gold Coast.

“At the start of 2015, we had one airline, doing one destination,” Tamworth Regional Airport manager Julie Stewart told The Leader.

“In less than two years, we’ve now got four airlines doing two major-capital cities, which means we’ve got competition on both routes.

“A lot of airports can’t brag about that, but we can.”

Ms Stewart said the passenger influx was “a barometer for what is happening in the region” with the airport registering a 10 per cent growth since last year.

“People are realising Tamworth is going to be the next inland capital,” she said.

Now the next mission is to get more flight destinations out of Tamworth locked in.

“Any airline that wants to talk to us about any destination, we’ve got the doors open,” Ms Stewart said.

“We’re [also] looking for feedback from people as to what they would like to see.

“The last survey that we did and the business chamber did, Melbourne was definitely one of the destinations that people were looking for, but Gold Coast and Canberra also.”

While it was a boom year for the Tamworth airport, it wasn’t all roses with councillors expressing their frustrations over the number of delays and cancellations and the impact it could have on the region’s travel and tourism sector.

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“It’s probably more noticeable in the regional areas because we don;t have the frequency of services,” Ms Stewart said.

“So you would have to wait an extra hour or two hours, whereas in Sydney you might only have to wait half an hour for the next connecting flight.

“So it’s more noticeable here, but every airport experiences it.” 

The coming months will see some changes swept through the airport with work on the runway apron extension to be completed soon.

Work is also expected to get under way on a huge upgrade of the terminal in the near future.

The 2016/17 financial year saw almost 200,000 passengers travel through Tamworth airport making it their biggest year ever.

Tamworth Regional Airport recorded a 9.4 per cent increase in passenger numbers for the 12 months to June 30 this year compared to the previous year.

The Tamworth to Brisbane route recorded the greatest growth with a 16.7 per cent increase in passengers in 2016-17 while the Tamworth to Sydney route had an increase of 8.8 per cent.

There are 118 commercially available flights a week – 21 per cent more services than were available the previous year. 

There have been 5,820 available flights in the year to June 30 equating to a 12 per cent increase in the number of seats available in the market compared to the previous financial year.

Since Virgin Australia started its Tamworth-Sydney service at the end of May 2015, total monthly passenger numbers have increased by 32 per cent. 

March was the biggest month for passengers with 18,167 coming through the gates.

In that same period, Sydney route monthly passenger numbers have increased by 28 per cent.