Delays at Perth Airport improve as Australian traffic climbsEmma KellyThe West AustralianWed, 22 October 2025 10:44AM
In good news for Perth air travellers, efforts to reduce air traffic delays at Perth Airport appear to be having a positive effect, according to the latest report card on the Australian air traffic system.
The September issue of the Australian Aviation Network Overview, released by air navigation service provider Airservices Australia, reveals Perth delays have dropped from around 390 minutes, or about four minutes per flight, to 50 minutes — less than a minute per flight — since the introduction of airport collaborative decision-making (A-CDM).
A-CDM involves real-time data sharing between all airport stakeholders via a single information platform to improve airport operations efficiency and air traffic predictability.
Airservices uses the ground delay program (GDP) at the country’s busiest airports to reduce delays, but has replaced this for departures with A-CDM at Perth and Brisbane airports.
The use of GDP at Perth was designed to manage peak morning demand within the available airport capacity, but A-CDM allows the dynamic and real-time distribution of delays more equitably, optimising aircraft departure sequencing.
Airservices Australia says the introduction of A-CDM at Perth and Brisbane airports is delivering benefits, including enhancing situational awareness, stakeholder co-ordination, and operational efficiency.
Across the country, airline performance remained resilient in September, despite challenging winter conditions, according to Airservices.
Across the network, use of the GDP dropped by 50 hours in September compared to last year, even with an additional 100 daily aircraft movements at the four busiest airports.
The report also notes the Australian aviation network achieved major milestones last month, with September 18 marking the busiest day for airline passenger transport since 2019 with 2799 flights across the network.
Meanwhile, Brisbane Airport set an all-time record on September 26, ahead of the AFL grand final, with 617 aircraft movements.
Steady inflation, resilient domestic economic activity, and stable fuel prices support a “cautiously positive” outlook for the Australian aviation sector, says Airservices, with exchange rate movements and global geopolitical sentiment influencing inbound and outbound travel patterns.
Japan, China, Thailand, India and Indonesia were the outbound international markets with the strongest growth in September.
In less good news for passengers, robust passenger demand outpacing capacity is placing upward pressure on airfares.
While traffic is growing, the ongoing expansion of user preferred routes, whereby airlines can specify their own flight path according to weather conditions, taking advantage of tailwinds and avoiding headwinds, is yielding results. UPR results in savings in travel time, fuel use and emissions.
In 2024, Airservices launched an 11-month trial of UPR involving the national air navigation service providers of Indonesia, Singapore and New Zealand, and airlines Qantas, Air New Zealand, Garuda Indonesia and Singapore Airlines, on 38 different scheduled routes between Australian/New Zealand and Indonesian/Singaporean airspace.
In July, two additional ANSPs — Fiji Airports and NiuSky Pacific (Papua New Guinea) — and three airlines — Cathay Pacific, Jetstar and Fiji Airways — joined the program. Some 70 different scheduled flights per day are operating under the UPR initiative, with Qantas increasing its UPR routes from 15 to 19.
Airservices says since the expansion of the trial in July, several long-haul and transcontinental flights have achieved more than a 50 per cent year-on-year reduction in CO2 emissions across its entire flight segment within Australian airspace.
These results demonstrate how flexible routing, enabled through cross-border collaboration, is delivering tangible progress toward aviation’s 2050 net zero target, says Airservices. One carrier has reported almost 2000kg of fuel was saved on a single Hong Kong-Sydney flight using UPR.
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