Virgin, Qantas quibble over on-time status

Weather, ground delays and the Crowdstrike outage have undermined airlines’ on time performance in July, with almost 30 per cent of flights arriving late.

Virgin Australia had the best on time performance of the major airlines in July.

Rex’s difficult run in the lead up to administration has been highlighted by new on time performance data showing the normally punctual airline had a horror July, with almost a third of flights arriving late.

Only Jetstar turned in a worse performance in the month by just 0.2 per cent, however the low fares carrier cancelled 299 flights or 3.7 per cent to Rex’s 159 (2.6 per cent).

The crippling Crowdstrike outage was blamed for Jetstar’s result, due to the “significant operational challenges” caused by the software failure.

Rex’s issues were less clear, but after going into administration on the evening of July 30, administrators EY pointed to pilot shortages and supply chain issues for the airline’s woes.

Across all airlines, only 71.1 per cent of flights were on time, well down on the long term average of 80.9 per cent.

Qantas and Virgin Australia both laid claim to the title of most punctual airline for July, based on data compiled by the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics.

Qantas and QantasLink combined managed to land 72.8 per cent of flights on time, as opposed to Virgin Australia’s 70.3 per cent, factoring in the performance of Virgin Australia Regional Airlines.

But Virgin Australia pointed out that as a stand-alone airline, it landed 70.5 per cent of flights on time, as opposed to Qantas main line’s 69.1 per cent, and cancelled far fewer services at 2 per cent, to the larger carrier’s 3.5 per cent.

Virgin Australia integrated operations centre general manager Danny Norman said the airline experienced minimal disruption from the Crowdstrike outage, with only six flights cancelled.

“Weather and ground delays from air traffic controllers were the primary causes of disruption to Virgin Australia services last month,” said Mr Norman.

“Pleasingly, in August we are already tracking above recent completion levels despite carrying a significant number of Rex passengers free of charge after the airline entered voluntary administration.”

Qantas and Virgin Australia both claim to be the most punctual domestic airline.

Qantas also blamed challenging weather conditions, which saw Sydney Airport reduced to single runway operations on nine separate days.

A Qantas spokeswoman said their punctuality for the month was their best July result since 2021, and showed they continued to climb back towards long-term averages.

“Over the past four months, almost 80 per cent of Qantas flights have departed on time,” said the spokeswoman.

Jetstar chief operating officer Matt Franzi acknowledged the impact of the Crowdstrike outage that knocked out Jetstar’s systems for an entire day.

“Once our systems were back up and running, our teams were able to re-accommodate everyone affected by this incident,” Mr Franzi said.

“Our teams continue to work hard to make sure that our flights are on time for our customers.”

The BITRE data showed the busy Melbourne-Sydney route had one of the highest rates of flight cancellations, with 8.8 per cent of services axed across all airlines, including 10.7 per cent by Qantas.

Rex struggled with its short-lived Melbourne-Perth route, cancelling 4.5 per cent of services. The airline’s 737 operations were permanently grounded on July 31 following the appointment of administrators.

Cairns-Townsville operated by Rex and QantasLink had the highest rate of punctuality with 89 per cent of flights arriving on time.

Darwin-Perth was the worst for flight delays, with a mere 36 per cent of services flown by QantasLink and VARA landing within 15 minutes of schedule.