Tigerair leads rivals in on-time take-offs performance

The battle between the nation’s low-cost airlines to record the best ­on-time performance is being won by Tigerair.

Tigerair is seeking regulatory approvals for its new Bali service.

The battle between the nation’s low-cost airlines to record the best ­on-time performance is being won by Tigerair as it con­tinues to benefit from a revamp under parent company Virgin Australia.

For calendar 2015, about 84.2 per cent of Tigerair services departed on time — a record for the airline over the year — according to data from the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics.

In comparison, Tigerair’s low-cost rival, Jetstar, departed on time on 76.2 per cent of its flights in 2015.

On arrivals, Tigerair just nudged out Jetstar with 83 per cent of flights landing on time, compared with Jetstar at 81 per cent.

Tigerair also beat Jetstar when it came to cancellations, with 0.9 per cent of its flights on like-for-like routes cancelled, compared with 2.9 per cent for Jetstar.

“This is a major achievement for Tigerair Australia, which historically prior to the rebrand and Virgin Australia’s involvement was perceived negatively for reliability and cancellations,” said Tigerair head of communications Vanessa Regan.

“Customer satisfaction and on-time performance absolutely go hand in hand. Brands take time to evolve.

“However, we are seeing strong improvement in the area of customer satisfaction over recent times in tandem with our significant turnaround in on-time performance.”

Tigerair has continued its push for punctuality through the start of this year, with 84.4 per cent of flights leaving on time in January and 93.3 per cent on-time departures in February.

The airline has also managed to keep its rate of cancellations low, with just 1 per cent of flights cancelled in January and 0.7 per cent in February.

Jetstar cancelled 5.7 per cent of flights in January and 1.4 per cent in February.

A spokesman for Jetstar defended the carrier’s performance, saying it had been more punctual in getting customers to their ­destination on time than Tigerair for most of its history.

“We have made some changes recently after a challenging ­summer, and our flight punctuality was up to around 85 per cent over the last month. We also had around 1 per cent of flights cancelled this month,” the spokesman said.

The improving performance of Tigerair comes as the airline’s new Bali service continues ­without the regulatory approvals needed to sell flights from Den­pasar to Australia. The airline has been seeking regulatory approvals from Indonesia to sell one-way fares since March but has so far been unsuccessful.

The regulatory hurdle has affected few Tigerair customers, as the airline can sell flights from Australia to Bali as well as round trips, although it is unable to offer a one-way fare from Denpasar back to Australia.

“Negotiations and commercial discussions are continuing between Tigerair Australia and the relevant parties,” a Tigerair spokesman said.

“Early demand has shown the Bali route to be very popular for Tigerair Australia, and the airline is pleased and encouraged by the number of forward bookings for the destination.”

“Tigerair Australia has full regulatory approval to sell flights from Australia to Bali and Bali to Australia, provided the journey originates in Australia. Once we have the approvals in place for selling fares from Indonesia, we will commence doing so.”