It’s not great news for travellers or carriers. Australian airlines turned in a much lower on-time arrivals and departures report card last month against the long-term average plus a higher-than-usual cancellations rate of 2.9 per cent.
Combined, Aussie domestic carriers averaged just 69.3 per cent for on-time arrivals and 68.5 per cent for on-time departures in October 2022, representing a 20 per cent year-on-year decrease in reliability.
The average on-time arrivals and on-time departures stats recorded for October 2021 was around 88 per cent, according to the latest BITRE airline on-time performance stats summary.
On-time arrivals
- Qantas (74.2%)
- QantasLink (74.1%)
- Virgin Australia Regional Airlines (73.7%)
- Rex Airlines (68.3%)
- Virgin Australia (64.5%)
- Jetstar (64.4%)
On-time departures
- QantasLink (74.5%)
- Qantas (73.1%)
- Rex (70.5%)
- Virgin Australia Regional Airlines (69.2%)
- Virgin Australia (63%)
- Jetstar (61.6%)
Cancellations
- Virgin Australia Regional Airlines (5.1%)
- Jetstar (3.9%)
- Virgin Australia (3.6%)
- QantasLink (3%)
- Rex Airlines (2.2%)
- Qantas (1.2%)
The Qantas network (Qantas and QantasLink) reported the best on-time arrivals and departures percentages, followed by Rex Airlines, the Virgin Australia network and Jetstar.
It’s also good news for Qantas with the turnaround from most to least cancellations with the carrier’s domestic capacity projected to lift to 100 per cent of pre-pandemic levels by the second half of FY2023.
Virgin Australia Regional Airlines recorded the highest percentage of cancellations at 5.1 per cent during the month, followed by Jetstar (3.9%), Virgin Australia (3.6%), QantasLink (3%), Rex Airlines (2.2%) and Qantas at 1.2 per cent.
It’s a disappointing result for Virgin Australia after the ‘Bring on Wonderful‘ brand campaign launch last month that focuses on reimagining the customer experience.
The Department of Transport report found passengers on regional routes fared best with the Cairns-Townsville service recording the highest percentage of on-time arrivals (89.1%)) while the Adelaide-Alice Springs service had the highest on-time departures (91.1%).
Cancellations were highest on the Armidale–Sydney route (6.1%) followed by the Melbourne–Sydney route (5.8%), the Sydney–Melbourne route (5.6%), the Melbourne–Gold Coast route (4.8%) and the Gold Coast–Sydney and Newcastle–Melbourne routes (both 4.7%).
For airports, Broome Airport recorded the highest on-time arrivals (87.3%) and Mount Isa Airport recorded the highest percentage of on-time departures (84.4%).
Bonza’s new hub, Sunshine Coast Airport, recorded the lowest percentage of on-time departures at just 49.9 per cent.
