Adelaide has gained new airlines and destinations recently; Emirates returns soon
Adelaide is the capital of South Australia. With 7.12 million passengers last year, it is the country’s fifth-busiest airport. The return of Fiji Airways in 2022 (which last served Adelaide in 2019) and VietJet in 2023 helped the recovery.
Emirates will also assist when its daily Dubai service resumes on 28 October having last been served in 2020. Adelaide will again have two Middle East airlines. Emirates will join Qatar Airways, which inaugurated Adelaide service in 2016.
Like any other airport, Adelaide has other airlines that no longer serve it. For example, Batik Air pulled out in July 2024, Cathay Pacific and China Southern last flew there in 2020, and LCC Tigerair ceased to exist in 2020.
The top three airlines have 86% of capacity
Analysis of Cirium schedules data for Q4 2024, during the summer season in the Southern Hemisphere, shows that Qantas is, of course, the largest airline. In the three months, Qantas and regional unit QantasLink will serve 15 domestic destinations non-stop.
Qantas’ relatively recent additions include Cairns, Gold Coast, Hobart, Mt. Gambier and Townsville in 2021, followed by Newcastle in 2022. Cirium shows that it was the first time Townsville had had Adelaide flights.
Qantas has 35% of Adelaide’s Q4 available seats, which rises to 57% when Group LCC Jetstar is included. Capacity has grown by 16% versus Q4 2019, partly influenced by Tigerair’s exit. Jetstar flies to 10 domestic and one international destination. Its network now includes Proserpine for the Whitsundays. South Australia’s first-ever flights to the Queensland airport began on 1 September 2024 (3-weekly).
When Virgin is added, the trio has 86% of capacity. While that level of dominance is unsurprising, it is lower than the trio’s presence in Australia’s domestic market generally (94%). Virgin has 10 routes, all domestic. They include Cairns, Darwin, Hobart and Launceston, all launched during 2021.
Thirty-two scheduled destinations in Q4
According to Cirium data, Adelaide has 32 scheduled airline destinations in Q4 (FILO, etc., are on top). Unsurprisingly, large state capitals – Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth – take the top four spots. Melbourne is the leading market. It has 148-weekly departing flights in the first week of October by Qantas (63), Virgin (58) and Jetstar (27).
The four cities are all served by Qantas, Virgin, and Jetstar. They account for two-thirds of Adelaide’s capacity, about the same as before the pandemic. That’s despite Rex’s exit in August 2024. All four cities saw its jets, including Perth, a route introduced on 28 June 2024. While Brisbane, Melbourne, and Sydney were on its 737-800s, Perth was aboard a wet-leased E190. The airline was the smallest player to the four cities and had just 6% of seats.
Approximately 11% of Adelaide’s Q4 seats are international, with flights to Auckland (Air New Zealand), Bali (Jetstar), Doha (Qatar Airways), Dubai (Emirates), Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia Airlines), Nadi (Fiji Airways) and Singapore (Singapore Airlines).
