During the pandemic's worst days, when there were no flights, Coolangatta's Gold Coast Airport (OOL) turned off the lights and locked the doors. But now, Australia's top regional airport is roaring back to life and has become the first Australian airport to fully bounce back from COVID-19 and regularly exceed its comparable 2019 passenger and flight numbers.

Gold Coast Airport is back from the dead

On Thursday, OOL is gearing up for a roaring day's trade. The airport's owner, Queensland Airports Limited, is expecting big numbers of passengers through the airport and, at Simple Flying's count, 161 arrivals and departures over the day.

"It is fantastic to see numbers recovering at this pace after two challenging years for the airport and tourism sector we support," said Queensland Airports Limited CEO Chris Mills. Gold Coast Airport reported its busiest day in two years on April 1, with more than 21,000 people moving through the terminal. On Easter Monday, the airport is eyeing more than 24,000 passengers passing through - an all-time record.

In 2019, the last year of uninterrupted operations for airports, OOL was the sixth-busiest airport and busiest non-capital city airport, recording 5,571,100 passenger movements that year. Around half those passengers flew the Gold Coast - Sydney city pair, the fourth-busiest route in Australia that year.

But one month after COVID-19 closed down Australia, OOL started closing its doors on days when no airlines scheduled flights. In April 2020, less than 2,000 passengers passed through OOL compared to 560,000 passengers in April 2019.

Departures Hall Gold Coast Airport Terminal
The days of empty departure halls are over at the Gold Coast Airport. Photo: Gold Coast Airport

The Gold Coast is Australia's top travel destination on Thursday

But today, Thursday, the Gold Coast is Australia's number one travel destination. On Thursday, there are two international flights into OOL - an Air New Zealand A320 service to and from Auckland (AKL) and a Scoot Dreamliner service to and from Singapore (SIN). The rest of the flights are coming in from all points around Australia, with Qantas, Jetstar, Regional Express (Rex), Airnorth, and Virgin Australia all back servicing the Gold Coast.

In its coverage of aviation news, Simple Flying has previously criticized Virgin Australia for its ho-hum commitment to destinations outside the Sydney - Brisbane - Melbourne triangle. But in a sign of Virgin Australia's resurgence, it's now got the Gold Coast covered with the most flights in and out of the airport today of any airline. And this is not a one-off event - Virgin Australia is now consistently operating the most daily services in and out of OOL, dislodging the longstanding trophy holder Jetstar.

Virgin Australia Boeing 737-800 Gold Coast Airport
Virgin Australia is now the top airline flying in and out of the Gold Coast. Photo: Gold Coast Airport

Virgin Australia could not tell us exactly how many passengers they are flying in and out of OOL on Thursday, but with thirty-four 176 seat Boeing 737-800 flights into the Gold Coast and 33 flights out of the Gold Coast on Thursday, they have 11,926 seats on offer. Judging by the mayhem at Sydney and Melbourne Airports on Thursday morning, most of those seats will be full.

Jetstar has 27 Airbus A320 flights into the Gold Coast on Thursday and 25 flights out of the holiday hotspot. Qantas has a dozen flights into the airport and 11 flights out on its workhorse Boeing 737-800s. Rex is operating six Boeing 737-800 inbound flights from Sydney and Melbourne and seven departing flights and say they've hardly got a seat to spare, while Airnorth has a return service from Townsville on offer.

Mimicking the pre-pandemic days, the vast majority of OOL flights are to and from Sydney and Melbourne. However, adding variety to the arrival and departures boards at Gold Coast Airport today are flights from Newcastle(NTL), Adelaide (ADL), Cairns (CNS), Perth (PER), Hobart (HBA), and Canberra (CBR).