Changing Patterns of Air Services at Second-Ranked Cities in Australia 2001–2024

The paper explores ways that airports impact cities. It creates a sample of 48 ABS-defined Significant Urban Centres (excluding Sydney and Melbourne) that have airports included in a national airport database. These are labelled second ranked cities for the study. Research identifies their rank and change in rank on passenger numbers and population. Only six have international air services, and their rank changed little over the past two decades, notwithstanding population, resource and tourism development. The dominance of Sydney and Melbourne is fundamental to Australia’s international aviation. All 48 cities have domestic services. A few of the state capitals and important tourist destinations have a high rank in population growth and air passenger numbers. A second group stands out with high growth in passenger numbers but lower population growth. They include mining centres and tourist access cities in a long corridor north from Brisbane. This group is re-expressing the basic geography of non-metropolitan air services, which has shifted away from the mid-country regional centres that were once the backbone of nonmetropolitan aviation.