Jetstar completes 99% of flights in September

Jetstar also beat sister airline Qantas’ mainline domestic services for on-time arrivals, at 79.3 per cent to Qantas domestic’s 78.4 per cent, as well as Virgin Australia individually at 76.9 per cent.

While the Qantas Group subsidiary pipped Virgin for on-time departures (78.3 per cent to 78.2 per cent), it fell behind Qantas domestic at 82.5 per cent, marking Jetstar’s best September on-time departure rate in 10 years outside of COVID-19.

“Customers turn to us for low fares, but they also want a reliable service – and time and time again, that’s exactly what we’re delivering,” said Jetstar’s chief operating officer, Matt Franzi.

“Our customers are at the heart of everything we do, and we will keep working hard to be the very best low-cost airline we can be.”

On a network scale, QF-designated flights (Qantas and QantasLink) saw higher reliability than VA flights (Virgin Australia and VARA).

On-time arrivals for Qantas network flights were at 79.8 per cent, while 81.1 per cent departed on time in September, compared to 76.9 per cent and 78.0 per cent respectively for Virgin network flights. Qantas said work was underway to further improve its reliability.

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“We’re proud of the strong domestic on-time performance we’ve achieved again this month,” a spokesperson said.

“It’s a credit to the thousands of Qantas team members who continue to focus on improving reliability and maintaining strong performance for our customers every day.”

As usual, however, Virgin beat Qantas on network cancellations, with 1.5 per cent of flights cancelled compared to Qantas’ 2.8 per cent; QantasLink individually had the worst cancellation rate for the month at 3.4 per cent.

Virgin Australia general manager, Integrated Operations Centre, Danny Norman, said the airline was pleased to have improved its on-time performance over August.

“Nearly 80 per cent of an average 404 daily scheduled domestic Virgin Australia flights departed on time in September, and only two per cent of those experienced delays of over 60 minutes,” he said.

“We completed 98.5 per cent of scheduled domestic flights, maintaining our position as having the lowest average cancellation rate of the major Australian airlines in 2025.

“September was a busy month for passenger movements, with school holidays and AFL finals, for which Virgin Australia scheduled nearly 3,000 additional seats.

“We are focused on continuous improvement and maintaining a stable and reliable operation for those who choose to fly with us.”

Average performance across all participating airlines was worse than long-term averages for both on-time arrivals and on-time departures; however, cancellations were lower than the long-term average for the month.

The results come after Qantas was named the most punctual Australian domestic carrier for the 2024-25 financial year, though Virgin had a higher completion rate.

On-time arrivals (per cent)

• Qantas and QantasLink – 79.8
• Virgin Australia and VARA – 78.0
• Hinterland – 90.8
• QantasLink – 80.7
• SmartLynx Australia (formerly Skytrans) – 79.6
• Jetstar – 79.3
• Qantas – 78.4
• Virgin Australia – 76.9
• Rex – 74.6
• Virgin Australia Regional Airlines – 69.1

On-time departures (per cent)

• Qantas and QantasLink – 81.1
• Virgin Australia and VARA – 78.0
• Hinterland – 94.1
• SmartLynx Australia (formerly Skytrans) – 84.2
• Qantas – 82.5
• QantasLink – 80.3
• Jetstar – 78.3
• Virgin Australia – 78.2
• Rex – 77.0
• Virgin Australia Regional Airlines – 64.9

Cancellations (per cent)

• Qantas and QantasLink – 2.8
• Virgin Australia and VARA – 1.5
• QantasLink – 3.4
• SmartLynx Australia (formerly Skytrans) – 2.2
• Qantas – 1.9
• Rex – 1.9
• Virgin Australia – 1.5
• Jetstar – 1.0
• Hinterland – 0.2
• Virgin Australia Regional Airlines – 0.0