This morning, BITRE released July 2025’s international aviation data, revealing an important milestone: international airline seat capacity has finally reached its pre-COVID level! In the year to July 2025, airlines flying international routes to Australia provided 24.8 million seats compared to 24.7 million seats in the year to January 2020.
While capacity recovered quickly in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic, the recovered slowed significantly in the last year. By the end of 2022, inbound capacity had reached 48% of the January 2020 baseline, and 84% by the end of 2023 and 95% by the end of 2024. It’s been like watching paint dry during 2025!