State border decisions dictate Australian domestic airline recovery

The key dynamic to watch in the Australian airline market during the last few months of 2020 is the growth of domestic capacity as more state borders reopen. Although progress has been made to remove interstate restrictions, the pace is still uneven, and in some cases has even reversed as restrictions are resumed.

Every month CAPA examines the key trends and developments in the Australasian region as part of the CAPA Live event. The Nov-2020 update focused mainly on the Australian domestic market, since this sector is where most of the movement is occurring. However, there have also been some interesting signals on the more distant prospect of international resumption.

Aside from state borders, one very interesting development in the domestic market is the ambitious effort by Regional Express Holdings (Rex) to launch jet operations on Australia's east coast trunk routes.