Chart of the week #21: Australian domestic airline market share

With the publication of the February edition of the ACCC’s Domestic airline competition monitoring report we got the final instalment of 2024’s domestic passenger volumes and market shares.

The report itself was unremarkable, however there was a flurry of media activity and social media comment celebrating Virgin overtaking Qantas as the largest airline in December 2024.

While this is technically true, it’s also a little misleading by itself. While Virgin did hit 35.0% market share in December, beating Qantas’s 34.6%, it ignores that the Qantas group (including Jetstar) held a mammoth 63.6% market share.

Furthermore, it also ignores that Qantas’s market share typically declines in the months of December and January as capacity is reallocated to international routes. Meanwhile, Jetstar typically sees an increase in market share during the same months as seasonal increases are implemented.

Removing the seasonal dimensions and aggregating over the calendar year, one clearly sees Qantas’s dominance come to the fore, at the individual and group level. In 2024, Qantas won 37% of the market compared to Virgin’s 33%. At a group level, Qantas achieved a 63% market share.

Moreover, looking at historic trends, Qantas maintained the same market share as it had in 2019. Jetstar has grown its market share from 24% to 27%, while Virgin’s market share has increased from 30% to 33%. However, at a group level, Qantas-Jetstar have increased their market share from 61% to 63% while Virgin-Tigerair’s market share declined from 37% to 33%. We shouldn’t forget about Tiger!

Market shares are also a limited metric and may give the appearance of decline when it may simply reflect slower growth in absolute numbers. We’ve included those figures for completeness.

Just a reminder of last “Chart of the week”, a look at the rise of Jetstar in Qantas’s group level capacity, and the recent surge in Jetstar’s international capacity.

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