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As the major gateway for most international tourists going into and out of Australia, Sydney Airport's traffic figures offer a unique insight into the country's tourists.
This year, the Airport recorded yet another record year of people travelling through Mascot.
44.4 million passengers travelled through the airport's three terminals, an increase of 2.5 per cent compared to 2017.
Sydney Airport CEO Geoff Culbert says the boost was brought on by an increase of seats arriving and leaving the airport.
"Our strong growth has been underpinned by international capacity increases representing 1.2 million additional seats," says Culbert.
International passenger traffic in 2017 increased 4.7 per cent, whilst domestic travel grew by 1.2 per cent.
During December domestic travel dipped by 2.6 per cent which Culbert says was a result of cancellations due to storms and adverse weather activity.
In terms of which nationalities are coming through Sydney Airport the biggest growth nation was India, but the Chinese are still the top non-Australian nationality to pass through.
Sydney Airport could see even more Chinese coming into the airport in 2019 now that China Eastern Airlines are planning on upgrading their A330-200 aircraft on the Shanghai-Sydney route to a A350-900 from 1 April.
The new plane is expected to add almost 41,000 seats annually to the Sydney-Shanghai route.
Top 10 nationalities travelling through Sydney Airport:
- Australia
- China (including Hong Kong)
- New Zealand
- United States of America
- United Kingdom
- South Korea
- India
- Japan
- Malaysia
- Indonesia
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Business News Australia
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