Looking at buying flights for 3 back to Brisbane in around March from an international destination.
Same airline same date $1440 USD to BNE.
If I change it, so it land in Sydney instead it's $730 USD
Brisbane airport is a crap hole it should have been upgraded 15 years ago but the government was too busy bankrupting the place.
We"re going to have about 130KG of checked in luggage so ChitStar, If they ever depart as a connecting flight from SYD to BNE is about $700 AUD making it pointless, and a 1 way hire car is $1100 AUD for 3 days.
Why on the east coast SYD MLB get great deals and BNE is a rippoff?
ThaiAir, Royal Brunei, Scoot (OOL) and AirAsia(OOL) just to name a few have all walked away from flying into the SEQ region, What is the government monkeys doing to upset these players.
What The Hell Is It with BNE?
Comments
Got to love the stream of misinformation in this thread.
- BNE is Australia' largest airport by geographic area but serves a much smaller population than SYD and MEL
- BNE's second runway (01L/19R) was commissioned in 2020
- BNE is currently being upgraded for Olympics
- Many airlines did not recommence services to BNE after COVID-19
- Many low cost Asia budget airlines simply do not fly to BNE now due to low demand
- Use tools such as Skyscanner to look for connecting flights to reduce overall price (e.g. BNE <-> Other Hub <-> Destination). You can often get close/same pricing.
For example:
- BNE <-> SG // VietJet // $A678 via Ho Chi Min City
- SYD <-> SG // KLM/JetStar // $A617 via Denpasar
Flying end of 31 January 2026 returning February 7 2026.
Also, don't forget school holiday tax. Hope that helps.
How is school holiday tax relevant to OP’s post about wanting to go to BNE in March?
Flights get generally more expensive in/out of BNE during school hols (e.g. QLD, NSW, etc.) especially International (e.g. BNE <-> NAN can double). There's no Government tax … more an "airline price gouging because we can". If they are not flying during those periods then there is less to worry about. Specifically:
QLD Term 1 Holidays: Friday 26 March to Sunday 11 April 2026
NSW Term 1 Holidays: Tuesday 7 April to Friday 17 April 2026
Airlines treat BNE as a secondary airport, not a hub like SYD
It is.
It's more expensive to fly to a backwater than to an international destination. Thanks for that breaking news from our reporter at the scene.
Brisbane airport is a crap hole it should have been upgraded 15 years ago but the government was too busy bankrupting the place.
Brisbane airport is privately owned. It makes no sense to privatise profits yet expect tax payers to pay for costs.
So are most airports including Sydney and Melbourne.
Its the trade off for warmer weather.
Sydney is warm enough.
It's only a 10 hour drive, why do you need 3 days car hire?
Had the same thought. That said, having recently done it, the one way fee far outweighs the daily rate. Paid $700 for a one way one day hire, each consecutive day added about $80. Hertz.
It Hertz my bank account and desire for value, but was an emergency.
Supply vs demand
Sydney has way more flights versus Brisbane
Brisbane is also a shithole
You have it backwards. People fy into Brisbane then fly domestic to Bundaberg, the 8th wonder of the world.
How's Brisbane a shithole?
Brisbane is also a shithole
Enjoy being packed like sardines in Shytney
Enjoy going broke because of the Olympics
Less flights equals less competition hence higher prices.
Consider yourself lucky. Imagine if Sydney flights were same price. You would have the misfortune of paying a high price AND being in Sydney.
All of our federal politicians have free access to Qantas chairmans lounge and the same politicians also set aviation policy. Does anyone else think this is a perversion of politics? Qantas has been able to minimise competition & structure their flight schedules in a profitable way thanks to government policy which largely keeps low cost overseas airlines away from the lucrative routes. If you live outside the Sydney/Melbourne/Canberra triangle, then good luck getting a convenient and/or affordable flight.
Brisbane - Sydney is the second busiest route in Australia. There's plenty of flights.
Besides, OP is complaining about international flights in. Despite being open, airlines aren't exactly scrambling to fly into Brissie (which has tonnes of domestic travel, but not that much international compared to Melb/Syd).
Internation airlines would do nothing except fly the existing busy routes, Australia is a massive country that can barely sustain one airline on most of the routes (like Rex, which helped lower prices but also went under). And I think OP would quickly find out that any budget airline costs a fortune when you want to travel with 130KG of luggage.
drive to sydney , leave car in long term parking ~$60/wk , go on trip , pick up car on way back , drive home
Makes sense if you're time isn't worth anything to you. Also… Most people would also have to drop like circa $200 on fuel.
If it's cheaper to fly to SYD, then why don't you fly to SYD?
Because I live in Brisbane
So a flight to BNE, and a flight to SYD are not substitutes. Why do you expect that their prices should be related?
@jizmo: Don’t try to make sense of it… it was $800 cheaper for me to fly from SFO to DXB, with an overnights stay, then on to BNE than SFO to BNE directly. It’s just the economics of it, not the practicality or fuel cost
@jizmo: There's zero nautical miles difference in the MEL-SYD route in December vs. in August, yet in December, it seems to me 3x more expensive.
I'm a bit surprised other options haven't been floated, some thoughts:
1. Send excess luggage by road freight SYD to BNE.
2. Rent car, drive SYD - BNE drop off luggage, drive BNE - SYD, return car, fly back to BNE (remember this is ozb where saving money is #1. Don't be harsh, this is just me brainstorming)
3. Bus or rail SYD - BNE. If rail has first class maybe take that for more comfort.
4. Air tasker, either for yourself or luggage.The OP may have other criteria not mentioned which limits options. Eg we don't know passenger details.
Fly into SYD and catch the XPT to Roma St station.
From what I hear they don't seem to worry about extra baggage … and if they did I'm sure it would be cheaper than Sh*tstar.How long would that ride be? We don’t have much in the way of high speed rail. Would be over 10 hour ride, right?
LMBTFY (Bing due to restrictions): xpt sydney to brisbane ticket cost
"$70–250
Tickets cost $70–250 and the journey takes 14h 6m. Train tickets from Sydney to Brisbane start at $85, and the quickest route takes just 14h 6m. Check timetables and book your tickets with Rome2Rio."The neg is a bit rough (I'm not saying you negged). We don't know the OP criteria for travel, eg cost vs time.
Train travel is a reasonable option.14 hours? Damn, reminds me of my uni days, bussing from Bris to Mt Isa for uni holidays. 26 hour ride. That was hell. 14 hours on the train would be much nicer, but that’s a solid journey.
I didn’t neg, and no idea why somebody would neg it without a comment. Restored balance with an upvote.
why don't u fly into the cold ghost and then hire a car or take a 50c train to bne?
To get from OOL to Brisbane city (or BNE airport), you need to take a bus (777), the tram and then a train, or the 760 bus and a train. Gold Coast NIMYBs blocked the tram going all the way to the airport.
I know driving isn't your first or possibly preferred option here but maybe see if there are any campervan relocations from SYD or MEL to BNE as they give you a set period of time (usually 2-3 days) and it will cost you very little for the rental apart from fuel.
The main problem is that Brisbane is a shithole and nobody wants to visit a shithole
The irony of commenting “nobody wants to visit Brisbane” on a post where somebody is trying to get to Brisbane.
Ironic to you but not to me
Trolling much?
Nope. I genuinely don't like the place and think it's a shithole. It's allowed.
Good. As my grandmother used to say, if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.
@[Deactivated]: It's that kind of attitude that causes countries to decline.
Trump? …"if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all."
Mass migration pushing housing costs and cost of living through the roof? …"if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all."
Local councils becoming personal piggy banks for career bureacrats and career politicians to award contracts to mates and big corporations in return for sneaky backhanders and in so doing screw over the rate payers? …"if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all."
@tenpercent: Well, well, well … so we are now attempting a conversation pivot in conjunction with conflation bias … in conjunction with …
@[Deactivated]: I'm sure your grandmother was a lovely person but on this topic she's pretty much wrong
@R4: "Deactivated"… another one. Seems to happen a lot more lately. Every weeks lately I've been noticing new accounts I've never seen before spewing some hardcore mainstream drivel and then they just disappear.
MEL is sometimes cheaper and closer to most places except those directly north of Sydney
Melbourne is closer to Jakarta, but further away from Bali than Sydney
MEL is cheaper than SYD bc the airport fee is lower, not bc it's "closer to most places".
After probably 16 hrs of rooting around getting on and off a plane, and driving American style for a year and knowing bugger all but for Waze to get me on the highway home from Sydney, might be a good idea to have a rest just outside of the rat race of Sydney.
Budget are doing 3 days for the price of 2 but only 2 is around 1K + fuel which is worse than ChitStar.If you are going to hire that car, make sure it is a one-way rental…
Backwater regional airport with low demand, meaning you're basically paying for the privilege of having a flight from there when you could be going to a proper international airport for it.
I didn't realise Brisbane airport was in Melbourne?
Feeling better now.