But total cargo movements at domestic airports dipped 10% to 35.6 thousand tonnes over the month.

There were 4.61 million passengers carried on Australian domestic airlines in April 2012, only marginally below the number carried in the same month last year, the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics said.

Sydney remained Australia’s busiest domestic airport with 2.02 million passengers movements, followed by Melbourne with 1.81 million passenger movements and Brisbane with 1.36 million passenger movements.

The number of aircraft trips increased 2.6%, from 50,519 in April 2011 to 51,809 in April 2012.

Sydney was the busiest airport in terms of cargo movements (9.8 thousand tonnes, down 10.7%), followed by Melbourne (8.9 thousand tonnes, down 10.9%) and Brisbane (5.7 thousand tonnes, down 7.8%).

The number of passengers carried in the year ending April 2012 was 54.64 million, an increase of 0.1% on the previous 12 months.

Melbourne–Sydney remained Australia’s busiest route with 645,501 passengers, a decrease of 3.3%.

It was followed by Brisbane–Sydney with 355,350 passengers (down 5.6%) and Brisbane–Melbourne with 263,907 passengers (down 1.8%).

The greatest percentage increase in passenger numbers was on the Perth–Port Hedland route (up 39.9%).

There were large increases on a number of other routes, including Newman–Perth (up 39.5%), Brisbane–Mackay (up 17.9%) and Brisbane–Proserpine (up 17.8%).

Routes with traffic decreases included Melbourne–Sunshine Coast (down 27.7%), Sunshine Coast–Sydney (down 20.6%), Adelaide–Melbourne (down 14.2%) and Melbourne–Newcastle (down 13.2%).