Return of Sydney-Melbourne flights reopens a key domestic battleground

The easing of many domestic border restrictions in Australia will give a shot in the arm - so to speak - to the airline industry as airlines ramp up their interstate networks again.

Domestic operations have been a lifeline for most airlines in the prolonged absence of international routes. However, the emergence of the delta strain of the virus also caused Australian domestic services to wither through much of the second half of 2021.

While some international routes were set to return from 01-Nov-2021, flights will still be fairly slow to rebuild, and it is still unknown how soft international demand will be.

In domestic networks, on the other hand, capacity is set to roar back fairly quickly, and domestic demand proved to be very resilient in 2020 after the first wave of COVID-19 cases subsided.

All of this means that the removal of some of the major interstate restrictions is a very big deal for Australian airlines. And nowhere is this more true than in the Sydney-Melbourne market, the busiest of the so-called triangle trunk routes between Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.