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Rex was the top performing airline for flights departing on time in August — with Jetstar the worst.
New data released by the Department of Transport also reveals Darwin is Australia’s worst performing major airport, with just 34 per cent of its 119 flights departing on time. It comes as domestic airlines are slowly improving their service after the worst delays on record in April, June and July.
However, this week’s figures show the industry still has a long way to go to get back to pre-COVID standards.
On-time arrivals
- Rex – 79 per cent
- QantasLink – 70.8 per cent
- Virgin Australia – 69.4 per cent
- Virgin Australia Regional Airlines (VARA) – 66 per cent
- Qantas – 62.4 per cent
- Jetstar – 59.6 per cent
On-time departures
- Rex – 82.2 per cent
- QantasLink – 71.2 per cent
- Virgin Australia – 69.7 per cent
- VARA – 64.9 per cent
- Qantas – 61.8 per cent
- Jetstar – 56.9 per cent
Cancellations
- Rex – 0.8 per cent
- Virgin Australia – 2.2 per cent
- QantasLink – 3.2 per cent
- Qantas – 4.7 per cent
- Jetstar – 5.4 per cent
- VARA – 6.9 per cent
The best and worst performing airlines are shown above, while the worst performing routes are ranked below. All data is for August.
It follows Australian Aviation earlier this week reporting how Melbourne and Brisbane Airports are currently performing far better than earlier in the year as the school holidays begin.
On Monday, both airports saw an average delay of just 20 minutes for each passenger, according to the latest data from Flightradar24, while social media reports of disruption were subdued.
Victoria and Queensland are the first states to begin their holiday period and will be followed shortly by the ACT, NSW, the Northern Territory and Western Australia on 24 September, then Tasmania and South Australia on 1 October.
Qantas has previously said it is confident its service will be nearly back to normal by this month.
Brisbane Airport is expecting more than one million passengers to pass through its buildings in the two weeks of school holidays, with a record since pre-COVID of 12,300 international passengers and 58,000 domestic passengers forecast on peak days, while Melbourne Airport expects 1.5 million.
“The recent work the airlines have been doing to improve their operational performance is starting to show in their on-time data, and our team is doing what we can to support them,” said Melbourne Airport CEO Lorie Argus.
“The airport will be busy, so we’d encourage passengers to allow plenty of time to help take pressure off themselves and the system.”
During winter, domestic airlines were significantly reducing capacity to mitigate the delays and cancellations caused by staff shortages and sickness.
The ACCC revealed the cut in seats for sale during the last few months came despite the local industry hitting 97 per cent of pre-pandemic passenger numbers in June.
| Route | Airline | Flights scheduled | Cancellations | Departures delayed | % On-time departures |
| Perth–Brisbane | Jetstar | 18 | 1 | 16 | 5.9 |
| Perth–Sydney | Jetstar | 49 | 5 | 38 | 13.6 |
| Darwin–Melbourne | Jetstar | 22 | 0 | 18 | 18.2 |
| Darwin–Sydney | Jetstar | 23 | 1 | 18 | 18.2 |
| Darwin–Melbourne | Virgin Australia | 31 | 0 | 25 | 19.4 |
| Perth–Adelaide | Jetstar | 22 | 2 | 16 | 20.0 |
| Sunshine Coast–Melbourne | QantasLink | 34 | 0 | 27 | 20.6 |
| Perth–Darwin | Virgin Australia | 9 | 0 | 7 | 22.2 |
| Darwin–Sydney | Qantas | 54 | 0 | 41 | 24.1 |
| Darwin–Sydney | All Airlines | 109 | 2 | 81 | 24.3 |
| Broome–Perth | Virgin Australia | 17 | 1 | 12 | 25.0 |
| Darwin–Brisbane | Qantas | 43 | 1 | 30 | 28.6 |
| Sunshine Coast–Melbourne | Qantas | 7 | 0 | 5 | 28.6 |
| Darwin–Sydney | Virgin Australia | 32 | 1 | 22 | 29.0 |
| Brisbane–Adelaide | Jetstar | 36 | 2 | 24 | 29.4 |
| Darwin–Melbourne | All Airlines | 85 | 0 | 58 | 31.8 |
| Proserpine–Brisbane | QantasLink | 22 | 0 | 15 | 31.8 |
| Launceston–Melbourne | Jetstar | 62 | 0 | 42 | 32.3 |
| Launceston–Brisbane | Jetstar | 19 | 1 | 12 | 33.3 |
| Sydney–Adelaide | Jetstar | 63 | 3 | 40 | 33.3 |
| Darwin–Perth | Virgin Australia | 9 | 0 | 6 | 33.3 |
| Perth–Melbourne | Jetstar | 78 | 10 | 44 | 35.3 |
| Sydney–Hobart | QantasLink | 52 | 2 | 32 | 36.0 |
| Hobart–Brisbane | QantasLink | 11 | 0 | 7 | 36.4 |
| Darwin–Brisbane | All Airlines | 88 | 1 | 55 | 36.8 |
| Townsville–Brisbane | Jetstar | 47 | 1 | 29 | 37.0 |
| Mackay–Brisbane | Jetstar | 28 | 1 | 17 | 37.0 |
| Broome–Perth | Qantas | 42 | 2 | 25 | 37.5 |
| Kalgoorlie–Perth | Qantas | 32 | 0 | 20 | 37.5 |
| Perth–Broome | Virgin Australia | 17 | 1 | 10 | 37.5 |
| Melbourne–Launceston | Jetstar | 62 | 0 | 38 | 38.7 |
| Melbourne–Darwin | Qantas | 31 | 0 | 19 | 38.7 |
| Kalgoorlie–Perth | Virgin Australia | 38 | 2 | 22 | 38.9 |
| Cairns–Sydney | Jetstar | 106 | 3 | 62 | 39.8 |
| Mount Isa–Brisbane | Virgin Australia | 15 | 0 | 9 | 40.0 |
| Adelaide–Perth | VARA | 52 | 7 | 27 | 40.0 |
Craig
says:Considering the small number of flights’ operated by Rex, of course they’ll have on-time statistics’.
They should be prorated, then their figures’ would be more correct, in that they’re not so good.
These kind of stats are total bs, which don’t take into account all the variables’ which exist in aviation day-to-day running.
They’re as useless as the proverbial on a bull.