BITRE comparative airport data for the year to August 2018:

Cairns drops two places down the ladder at 1.4% ever so slightly behind Newcastle and Gold Coast.

Proserpine remains an outlier and should accelerate from here back towards the field even before Whitsunday shark scares. See last months post: What goes around

Huge winners for the month of August YoY though were Sunshine Coast +20.9%; Ballina +18.5%; Mackay +15.2% compared to the previous year. Nowhere else was although Tasmania is noted again with both Hobart and Launceston among the higher single digit performers for the month. In winter.

There are some differences between the BITRE data and Cairns Airport statistics but this comparative graph of annual passenger growth should be a concern:

Hopefully there will be some positive effect from increased accommodation capacity at the higher end of the market and any external shocks are avoided. Also that current crane activity rolls over into new projects.