Top-20 unserved routes: Australia-Southeast Asia
Building on World Routes 2019 in Adelaide, let’s look at the top-20 unserved routes from Australia to Southeast Asia. This is the first in a series of articles that will look at unserved routes across countries or regions. This is done using indirect passengers, growth rate, and average fare.
In 2018, these top-20 unserved routes saw 777,000 indirect passengers, up 4% – or 29,000 – YOY. Despite many of these routes overflying key hubs – Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok – various opportunities stand out.
| Top-20 unserved routes | 2018 passengers (two ways) | 2017 passengers (two ways) |
% chg. | 2018 average fare (USD)* | Fare/mile (USD)* |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Melbourne-Hanoi | 68,092 | 65,202 | 4.4% | $356 | $0.074 |
| Brisbane-Phuket | 59,756 | 60,817 | -1.7% | $267 | $0.061 |
| Brisbane-Ho Chi Minh City | 58,975 | 51,143 | 15.3% | $326 | $0.080 |
| Perth-Phuket | 58,709 | 57,783 | 1.6% | $187 | $0.063 |
| Perth-Manila | 57,816 | 56,809 | 1.8% | $290 | $0.090 |
| Perth-Ho Chi Minh City | 46,809 | 45,579 | 2.7% | $247 | $0.082 |
| Melbourne-Phnom Penh | 42,554 | 41,286 | 3.1% | $383 | $0.090 |
| Adelaide-Ho Chi Minh City | 40,180 | 36,582 | 9.8% | $297 | $0.079 |
| Brisbane-Jakarta | 39,970 | 36,553 | 9.3% | $380 | $0.112 |
| Sydney-Phnom Penh | 35,014 | 31,333 | 11.7% | $375 | $0.086 |
| Adelaide-Phuket | 33,898 | 34,424 | -1.5% | $227 | $0.057 |
| Adelaide-Manila | 31,754 | 29,139 | 9.0% | $272 | $0.076 |
| Adelaide-Bangkok | 26,787 | 26,647 | 0.5% | $317 | $0.078 |
| Melbourne-Danang | 26,282 | 20,798 | 26.4% | $362 | $0.082 |
| Darwin-Ho Chi Minh City | 26,018 | 28,823 | -9.7% | $75 | $0.033 |
| Sydney-Surabaya | 25,387 | 26,300 | -3.5% | $249 | $0.082 |
| Melbourne-Surabaya | 25,025 | 27,423 | -8.7% | $269 | $0.093 |
| Melbourne-Ko Samui | 24,085 | 22,864 | 5.3% | $360 | $0.083 |
| Sydney-Cebu | 23,873 | 23,585 | 1.2% | $178 | $0.050 |
| Melbourne-Penang | 23,850 | 22,418 | 6.4% | $310 | $0.075 |
Source: OAG Traffic Analyser. * One-way; USD; excluding taxes; excludes fuel surcharges; and across all cabins.
Unsurprisingly, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam are key. This is further highlighted through country-level data, below. From the popularity of Denpasar-Bali for Australians, Australia-Indonesia has almost 2.5m passengers a year. While indirect passengers account for a strong 570,000, they’re fewer than one-quarter of the total.
| Australia to/from… | 2018 indirect passengers (two ways) |
2018 total passengers (two ways) |
% indirect to total passengers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thailand | 652,000 | 1,386,000 | 47% |
| Indonesia | 567,000 | 2,482,000 | 23% |
| Vietnam | 531,000 | 952,000 | 56% |
| Philippines | 399,000 | 839,000 | 48% |
| Malaysia | 348,000 | 1,648,000 | 21% |
| Cambodia | 156,000 | 0 | 100% |
| Singapore | 147,000 | 2,127,000 | 7% |
| Brunei | 50,000 | 65,000 | 77% |
| Myanmar | 46,000 | 0 | 100% |
| Laos | 29,000 | 0 | 100% |
| Timor | 21,000 | 48,000 | 44% |
Source: OAG Traffic Analyser.
Vocal for Vietnam
In contrast, Vietnam-Australia is relatively underserved, with almost six in ten passengers flying indirectly. With VietJet Air’s 15 coming A321XLRs and assuming a rough eight-hour radius and singling out just one opportunity, Brisbane-Ho Chi Minh City looks interesting. It is one of the largest unserved markets and it has grown strongly: 15% YOY and a CAGR of 10% since 2014.
Source: OAG Traffic Analyser.
While Brisbane-Ho Chi Minh City has a longer-than-average sector length across these 20 unserved routes, its average one-way fare/mile – USD0.08 – is slightly above average.
VietJet Air offers connections, so Brisbane-Ho Chi Minh City could feed its Vietnam-wide services. And while VietJet Air tends not to offer many international connections, Brisbane-Ho Chi Minh-Delhi is closer to the great circle distance than Singapore. Brisbane-Delhi is a fast-growing market too.
Source: OAG Traffic Analyser.
It’ll be very interesting to see if any of these routes materialise.
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