By Daniel Lo Surdo and Supratim Adhikari
Australia’s three major airlines – Qantas, Jetstar and Virgin Australia – are well behind their international rivals when it comes to punctuality, with all three at the bottom of the pack in international ranking data released on Thursday.
Qantas was the best of the lot locally, with 73.9 per cent of its flights arriving within 15 minutes of their scheduled time, a widely used measure of performance among airlines, according to data compiled by aviation data provider Cirium.
Meanwhile, Qantas’ budget arm Jetstar and its rival, Virgin, recorded on-time performance rates of 73.4 per cent and 72.7 per cent respectively.
Planes at Melbourne Airport: The airline’s flights arrived within 15 minutes as scheduled 73.9 per cent of the time.Credit: Getty Images
However, Qantas’ performance was a far cry from that logged by Mexican airline Aeromexico, which had almost 87 per cent of its flights landing within 15 minutes of their scheduled time.
Saudia, the flagship carrier of Saudi Arabia, ranked second worldwide, with an on-time performance rate of just over 86 per cent, according to Cirium. Japan Airlines topped the table in the Asia Pacific, with an on-time performance of 80.9 per cent.
Qatar Airways, which is waiting for Australian regulators to approve its plan to take a 25 per cent stake in Virgin, posted on-time performance of 82.8 per cent.
Qantas has been the subject of fierce public scrutiny in the past two years, after the airline – which controls almost two-thirds of the Australian market – was sued for breaches of consumer law, and found to have illegally sacked more than 1800 baggage handlers during the pandemic.
Mounting controversies forced outgoing chief executive Alan Joyce to an earlier-than-scheduled exit in September 2023.
The domestic airline market has grown increasingly concentrated in the past 12 months, following the collapse of short-lived budget carrier Bonza and after Rex Airlines entered voluntary administration. Virgin has taken on more than 135,000 customers who had been booked on Rex flights since it suspended services in July.
The latest national punctuality data found two-thirds of domestic Qantas flights arrived on time, a figure worse than its international on-time data. Qantas’ domestic performance bettered competitor Virgin Australia, which had 62.7 per cent of its flights on time.
Qantas declined to comment when contacted by this masthead, while Virgin said it had “continued to improve operational performance in 2024”, in which it lodged a 73.9 per cent domestic on-time performance across the year.
“In the event of unexpected disruption, we will prioritise completing a flight even if it means a delay is necessary,” a Virgin spokesperson said. “This is to ensure that wherever possible our guests reach their destination on the desired day of travel.”
Floundering domestic competition has spurred greater international travel, as the introduction of new carriers into the Australian market has led to cheaper airfares, attracting a rising share of travellers looking for value as household budgets shrink.
The federal government published a draft aviation charter in December, designed to support customers whose flights are cancelled or who face hours-long delays.
Under the charter, which will be subject to industry consultation until February, travellers whose flights are cancelled would be entitled to a full refund rather than a flight voucher, while passengers facing hours-long delays would be offered assistance to book alternative travel arrangements.
The charter represents the first formal customer support guidance handed to the aviation sector by an Australian government. Airlines have already been encouraged to start following the draft guidelines as a measure of support for travellers during the busy summer season.
Cirium has rated airlines for timeliness for 16 years. Chief executive Jeremy Bowen said 2024 was a difficult year for airlines due to severe weather patterns and the summer technology outage. The winning airlines, therefore, deserved credit for getting most passengers to their destinations on time, he said.
Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines scored the highest rating among US carriers despite a computer outage that caused thousands of flight cancellations in July. The airline achieved an on-time rate above 83 per cent to rank third worldwide.
The next-best US carriers were United Airlines, at nearly 81 per cent, and Alaska Airlines, at just over 79 per cent, Cirium said.
Other regional winners around the globe, Cirium reported, were low-cost Spanish carrier Iberia Express, Panama’s Copa Airlines and South African low-cost carrier FlySafair.
with AP