Australian airlines may have been more punctual last year but they weren’t operating as many scheduled services compared to 2014.
Figures released by the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE) found around 1.6 percent of all scheduled flights to or from Australia were cancelled last year.
The cancellation rate was 0.1 percent more than the prior year and 0.2 percent higher than the long term average.
To us this means there were more travellers hanging out at Australian airports feeling a little like this:
Or like this:
QantasLink had the highest percentage of cancellations (2.5 percent) followed by Jetstar (2.1 percent) and Virgin Australia Regional Airlines (2.0 percent).
Cancellations were highest on the Canberra-Sydney route (5.3 percent) followed by Moranbah-Brisbane and Sydney-Canberra.
But that’s okay, because when travellers finally boarded a flight their aircraft most likely took off and touched down on schedule, with around 86 percent of all Australian routes arriving and 87 percent departing on-time.
Phew!
Virgin Australia’s guests would have been the most impressed because the carrier was the most punctual for both departures and arrivals last year – topping its rival Qantas.
Around 89.3 percent of Virgin’s flights arrived on-time in 2015 compared to 88.6 percent Qantas services, while 90.8 percent of Virgin’s departures took off on schedule, slight up from Qantas’ 89.6 percent.
In the low-cost sector, Tigerair topped Jetstar in both areas, with 83 percent on-time arrivals and 84.6 percent on-time departures compared to Jetstar’s 80.3 percent and 78.2 percent.
