The airlines in Australia have just recorded their worst on-time performance since records began in November 2003. The Australian Government’s Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics (BITRE) has released on-time and cancellation data for April, revealing that the country’s major airlines – Jetstar, Qantas, QantasLink, Rex Airlines, Virgin Australia, and Virgin Australia Regional Airlines – averaged 63.6 % on-time arrivals and 62.2 % on-time departures.
Easter, school holidays, and the ANZAC Day weekend were all high-traffic occasions in April, and short-staffed airlines and airports threw tens of thousands of passengers’ travel plans into confusion, contributing to airlines’ less-than-stellar on-time performance that month.
“This month’s on time arrivals figure was significantly lower than the long term average performance for all routes (82.2%) and the on time departures figure was also significantly lower than the long term average (83.5%). The rate of cancellations was higher than the long-term average of 2.0%,” stated in a BITRE statement.
On April, the six airlines BITRE tracked cancelled 43,409 of 45,247 scheduled flights, for a cancellation rate of 4.1 %. In April, QantasLink cancelled 591 flights (5.4 %); Qantas cancelled 426 flights (5.0 %); Jetstar cancelled 401 flights (4.9 %); Virgin Australia Regional Airlines cancelled 15 flights (%); and Rex cancelled 67 flights (1.1 % ).
