Virgin Australia posts worst on time performance in November as Jetstar tops cancellations

The country’s second largest airline was the least likely to get travellers to their destination on time, official figures show, as Jetstar axed nearly 20 per cent of flights on one route.

Bain Capital-owned Virgin Australia was the airline least likely to get a passenger to their destination on time in November with nearly four out of 10 flights late.

Official data released on Friday showed that 38.9 per cent of all flights scheduled by Virgin Australia were late to their destination and 590 or 5 per cent of its 11,809 flights scheduled over November were cancelled.

This compared to October when Virgin had 37 per cent of flights arrived at their destination behind schedule. Among it worst routes was Brisbane to Melbourne were 57.9 per cent of flights landed late.

The on time performance for Virgin Australia, which the industry speculates could return to the sharemarket in next year via an IPO, was narrowly the worst domestic airline, edging out budget carrier Jetstar, which had 38.7 per cent of services late. Its Perth to Brisbane route had 68.2 per cent of flights arrive behind schedule.

Virgin Australia operated more flights across Australia than any other individual entity including on the Brisbane-Sydney-Melbourne routes.

The Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics data considered a flight on time if it arrived within 15 minutes of its scheduled time, while a cancellation was recorded if it was not rescheduled within seven days.

Jetstar remained the airline most likely to cancel a flight in November with the Qantas-owned airline axing 7.2 per cent of its 6522 flight scheduled in November.

Jetstar had a cancellation rate of 17.6 per cent between Melbourne and Sydney — which BITRE said the route the most number of cancelled flights in Australia. Qantas axed 12.9 per cent of flights while Virgin Australia had 9.7 per cent on the route.

Sydney-Melbourne route at 11.6 per cent and the Canberra-Sydney route at 9.5 per cent had the next highest number of cancelled flights.

Qantas was the most punctual airline for a second consecutive month after months of customer ire and poor performance. The national carrier saw 66.2 per cent of flights arrive on time with only a third late. This was down on the previous month when 74.2 per cent of flights landed at the scheduled time. Cancellations at Qantas increased from 1.2 per cent in October to 3.7 per cent in November.

Rex trailed Qantas with an on time performance of 65 per cent throughout November and according to BITRE cancelled the fewest flights at 3.1 per cent.

Strong winds threw many airlines scheduled into chaos throughout November with Sydney Airport operating at a single runway because of adverse weather for 81 hours in total — a record, according to Airservices Australia. Weather events in Brisbane and Melbourne also added to a number of delays.

November’s on time arrivals figure was significantly lower than the long term average performance for all routes (81.7 per cent) and the on time departures figure was also significantly lower than the long-term average (82.9 per cent).

The findings comes as airports across Australia experienced a record-breaking holiday rush on Friday, with thousands of Australians enjoying the first Christmas since 2019 without Covid-19 related restrictions. Melbourne Airport, which had the worst on-time performance of the major airports in November, expected more than 100,000 travellers on Friday.