Bushfires, economy and now Wuhan slash Australia's air travel

In Australia, it seems "it never rains, but...". The widespread bushfires ravaging much of Australia's south and east coasts follow years of drought, rendering the usual expression incongruous.

For Australia's aviation (and tourism) the damage had already started in 2019, as a slowing economy and reduced competition hobbled air travel growth, both domestically and internationally.

Then the widely publicised fires across many hundreds of thousands of hectares of bushland, right into many popular tourism destinations, caused a sudden and much steeper drop; international tourists stayed away and many domestic travellers changed plans, right at the height of the domestic holiday season.

Now, with memories of 2003's catastrophic SARS impact almost faded from memory, the threat of an animal-originated pandemic rears its head again - just as the massive Chinese New Year holidays begin. China is Australia's largest international inbound tourism market, and as many Chinese now call Australia home, the two way flow has increased the overall volume of traffic.