Virgin the most punctual Australian airline

Virgin Australia can now boast that it's the country’s most punctual airline.

A Virgin 737-7FE aircraft leaves Adelaide airport.

Qantas might leave Virgin Australia in its wake in the financial stakes but the smaller airline can boast it’s the country’s most punctual carrier.

Federal government data for the year to June 30 showed Virgin Australia claimed “best on time performance” for arrivals and departures, snatching back the title from Qantas, which recorded the best results in the 2016-17 year.

The figures showed 84.7 per cent of Virgin Australia departures left within 15-minutes of schedule compared with 82.8 per cent for Qantas.

In the case of arrivals, Virgin Australia landed 82.6 per cent on-time, just ahead of Qantas with 82.3 per cent.

Tigerair recorded the worst on-time performance, with just over 30 per cent of arrivals running behind schedule and 28.5 per cent of departures.

The best route for on-time ­arrivals was Adelaide to the Gold Coast, while the Sunshine Coast to Melbourne route performed most poorly for on-time ­departures.

Virgin Australia group executive Rob Sharp said being a safe and reliable airline was paramount to the airline and its ­customers.

“We know departing and arriving on time is important to our guests and over the past few years we have implemented new initiatives to improve our on-time performance, such as a strong focus on our first flights of the day to ensure we get off to a good start, investment in automated self-service technology at the airport, and enhanced commitment to our frontline teams,” Mr Sharp said.

“From time to time there are events outside of our control which may impact this, however the teams in our Operations Control Centre and at the airport work extremely hard to achieve consistency.”

The Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics report did note that flight cancellations were higher than the long-term average of 1.4 per cent, at 1.7 per cent.

Virgin Australia Regional Airlines and Tigerair had the highest rate of cancelled flights at 2.6 per cent.

Jetstar and Regional Express had the lowest cancellation rate at 1.3 per cent.