Virgin Australia has regained the top spot for on-time performance among major Australian airlines after seven months behind Qantas Group.
Australia’s second-largest airline group snatched the triple crown from Flying Kangaroo in January, according to the latest BITRE data, overtaking Qantas in on-time arrivals, on-time departures and completion rates, again canceling less than one in 100 flights last month.
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The Virgin Australia network (Virgin and VARA combined) recorded 82 per cent on-time arrivals and 82.5 per cent on-time departures last month, compared to 80.9 per cent and 81.6 per cent respectively for the Qantas network (Qantas and QantasLink). 0.9 percent of VA flights were cancelled, compared to 2.7 percent of QF services.
“After a strong end to the year in December, our team raised the bar again in January,” Virgin Australia CEO Dave Emerson said.
“Leading major Australian airlines in January with the highest departure on-time performance and lowest cancellations is a testament to the efforts of our people throughout the entire operation.
“We know how important it is to get our guests to their destination on their desired travel day, and with less than 1% of scheduled domestic flights canceled during one of our busiest months, our results show that we are consistently delivering on that commitment.”
The results come shortly after Qantas was named the world’s third most punctual airline, behind China Southern and Hainan Airlines, by analytics firm OAG. Qantas Domestic CEO Markus Svensson said the January figures were a good result for the airline.
“This was our strongest January result in seven years, outside of COVID, which is a great result and a credit to the hard work of our people,” he said.
“Their efforts meant 100,000 more customers left on time compared to January last year. February is also off to a good start as we continue to invest in our operations and staff to further increase our reliability.”
Jetstar was the worst performer of the major airlines with 67.7 per cent on-time arrivals and 65.1 per cent on-time departures, although its cancellation rate of 3.2 per cent was slightly better than QantasLink’s 3.3 per cent.
Across all participating airlines (Hinterland, Jetstar, Qantas, QantasLink, Rex Airlines, Skytrans Australia (formerly SmartLynx Australia), Virgin Australia and Virgin Australia Regional Airlines) punctuality was below long-term averages, although cancellations were also slightly better.
On-time arrivals (percentage)
- All airlines – 78.4
- Long-term average: 80.5
- Virgin Australia and VARA – 82.0
- Qantas and QantasLink –80.9
- Indoor: 87.9
- Virgin Australia – 82.3
- QantasLink – 81.8
- King – 79.2
- Qantas – 79.0
- Jetstar – 67.7
- Virgin Australia Regional Airlines – 64.8
- Skytrans (formerly SmartLynx Australia) – 59.5
On-time departures (percentage)
- All airlines: 78.9
- Long-term average – 81.6
- Virgin Australia and VARA – 82.5
- Qantas and QantasLink – 81.6
- Inside: 91.9
- King – 83.7
- Virgin Australia – 82.7
- QantasLink – 81.7
- Qantas – 81.4
- Skytrans (formerly SmartLynx Australia) – 67.4
- Virgin Australia Regional Airlines – 65.4
- Jetstar – 65.1
Cancellations (percentage)
- All airlines – 2.1
- Long term average – 2.2
- Qantas and QantasLink – 2.7
- Virgin Australia and VARA – 0.9
- Qantas Link – 3.3
- Jetstar – 3.2
- Skytrans (formerly SmartLynx Australia) – 2.0
- Inside – 1.5
- Qantas – 1.5
- Rex – 0.8
- Virgin Australia – 0.9
- Virgin Australia Regional Airlines – 0.6
