The official punctuality listing for calendar 2018, as compiled by the Australian government’s Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport, and Regional Economics (BITRE) has been released – but the margin between winner and runner-up is so narrow that it wouldn’t be fair to blow the trumpet too loudly.
The winner is Qantas, which achieved the highest on-time arrivals among the major domestic airlines at 80.9%.
Next came Virgin Australia at 80.8% – so just one tenth of a percentage point behind its arch-rival.
Third place, quite a long way behind, was Jetstar at 75.3% and Tigerair Australia at 68%. QantasLink was the best performing regional airline for on-time arrivals at 84.3%, followed by Regional Express at 79.6% and Virgin Australia Regional Airlines at 75.3%.
A bigger margin opens up when you compare the Qantas network (Qantas and QantasLink combined operations) and the Virgin Australia network (Virgin Australia and Virgin Australia Regional Airlines combined operations). The Qantas network recorded 82.7% for on-time arrivals while the Virgin Australia network recorded 80.4%.
For the year ended December 2018, on-time performance over all routes operated by participating airlines (Jetstar, Qantas, QantasLink, Regional Express, Tigerair Australia, Virgin Australia and Virgin Australia Regional Airlines) averaged 79.8% for on-time arrivals and 80.8% for on-time departures. Cancellations represented 1.8% of all scheduled flights. The equivalent figures for 2017 were 82.0% for arrivals, 82.7% for departures and 1.9% for cancellations.
The 2018 on-time arrivals figure was below the long-term average performance for all routes of 82.5% and the on-time departures figure was also below the long term average of 83.8%. The rate of cancellations was higher than the long-term average of 1.5%.
Virgin Australia achieved the highest level of on-time departures for 2018 at 82.5%, followed by Qantas at 81.5%, Jetstar at 73.1% and Tigerair Australia at 69.3%. The regional airlines were led by QantasLink at 85.2%, followed by Regional Express at 83% and Virgin Australia Regional Airlines at 78.2%. The Qantas network recorded 83.5% for on-time departures while the Virgin Australia network recorded 82.2%.
Tigerair Australia had the highest percentage of cancellations at 3.5% during 2018, followed by Virgin Australia Regional Airlines at 2.7%, Jetstar at 2.5%, Qantas at 1.9%, Virgin Australia at 1.7%, QantasLink at 1.5% and Regional Express at 0.9%.
Of the 64 routes which met the criteria for on-time performance reporting for all 12 months in 2018 (excludes Melbourne-Townsville and Townsville-Melbourne routes on which Jetstar is the only operating carrier after July 2018), the Adelaide-Gold Coast route had the highest percentage of on-time arrivals at 90.8% and the Adelaide-Port Lincoln route had the highest percentage of on-time departures at 92.1%.
The Brisbane-Mount Isa route had the lowest percentage of on-time arrivals at 65.8% and the Ayers Rock-Sydney route had the lowest percentage of on-time departures at 60.0%.
Cancellations were highest on the Sydney-Melbourne and Melbourne-Sydney routes at 5.4%, followed by the Brisbane-Sydney route at 3.0%, the Broome-Perth route at 2.9%, the Sydney-Brisbane and Canberra-Sydney routes at 2.8% and the Alice Springs-Darwin route at 2.6%.
Emerald Airport recorded the highest percentage of on-time arrivals at 90% and Port Lincoln Airport recorded the highest percentage of on-time departures at 90.3%. Mount Isa Airport recorded the lowest percentage of on-time arrivals at 65.8% and Ayers Rock Airport recorded the lowest percentage of on-time departures at 60%. These figures only refer to reported routes and do not cover all flights at these airports.
Edited by Peter Needham
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