Airservices Australia has released its Australian Aviation Network Overview report for December 2025.
Highlights include:
- December 2025 marked a strong close to the year for Australian aviation, delivering the busiest Christmas travel period in five years alongside continued improvement across key operating metrics. Record flight activity, passenger volumes and load factors reflected sustained leisure-driven demand and favourable economic conditions, reinforcing the sector’s growth momentum.
- On 18 December, the network recorded 2,872 daily passenger flights, including 100 more flights than the busiest day in December 2024. During the month, international connectivity also expanded significantly, with over 10 global carriers introducing new routes and services, highlighting Australia’s critical role in supporting tourism and trade.
- Operational reliability remained a top priority, underpinned by proactive planning and transparent communication across airlines, airports and air traffic services. The senior‑level industry roundtable forum proved pivotal, enabling real‑time network visibility and coordinated decision‑making to improve passenger experience. Aviation Rescue and Fire Fighting services maintained a high standard of availability across most locations as an essential part of the airport emergency response capability during this critical period.
- Airport Collaborative Decision Making (A-CDM) is now fully operational at the four busiest airports, delivering early industry benefits through more predictable turnarounds, improved fleet and crew planning, better gate and taxiway utilisation, and reduced congestion via data‑driven traffic flow management. We are working with airline and airport partners to quantify these benefits holistically.
- Strengthening workforce capacity remained our core focus throughout 2025, with 91 additional air traffic controllers endorsed over the last 12 months, exceeding the target of 85. Air traffic service variation hours in December were 74% lower than last year, and Airservices Air Traffic Flow Management (ATFM) attribution to total network delays remained low at 0.2%.
- Despite our heightened focus on holiday resilience, unplanned absences resulted in some adhoc flow restrictions and service variations around Perth, Brisbane and Sydney. We are focused on active recruitment, training and cross-skilling to improve service outcomes for our customers and partners as we move into 2026.
About Airservices
Airservices Australia is a government-owned organisation responsible for safely and efficiently managing air traffic in 11 per cent of the world’s airspace, as well as the provision of aviation rescue fire fighting services at Australia’s busiest airports. We are regulated by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority and work closely with our customers and industry to support the long-term growth of the aviation industry.
