Qantas reclaims on-time performance crown

Across all participating carriers – Hinterland, Jetstar, Qantas, QantasLink, Rex Airlines, Skytrans Australia (formerly SmartLynx Australia), Virgin Australia and Virgin Australia Regional Airlines – 79.7 per cent of flights took off on time and 78.2 per cent arrived on time, with 2.4 per cent cancelled. These figures were worse than long-term averages on all three metrics.

The result is a 2.7 percentage point improvement on February 2025 for Qantas, with almost 40,000 more passengers departing on time last month.

The Flying Kangaroo says it is looking to improve its regional completion rates, with 3.4 per cent of regional flights cancelled for the month, behind only Rex at 4 per cent.

“We’re really pleased we’ve been able to maintain strong momentum through February and finish the month as the most on-time major domestic airline,” a Qantas spokesperson said.

“This is the second month in a row our punctuality has been above the long-term average. We know how much our customers value getting away on time and we’re putting in place a number of initiatives to continue to build on these results.”

For Virgin Australia’s part, its general manager, Integrated Operations Centre, Danny Norman, said that the carrier “remains focused on maintaining a stable and reliable operation for those who choose to fly with us”.

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“We are pleased to have maintained the highest completion rate of the major Australian airlines in February alongside an excellent on-time performance, according to the latest performance data published by BITRE,” he said.

“We completed 98.6 per cent of scheduled domestic flights, maintaining the lowest average cancellation rate of the major Australian airlines throughout 2025 and into 2026.

“Nearly 82 per cent of scheduled domestic Virgin Australia flights departed on time in February, and only three per cent of services experienced delays of over 60 minutes.”

Virgin consistently leads Qantas on completion rates, and last month claimed a reliability trifecta, beating the Flying Kangaroo on on-time performance and cancellations.

On-time arrivals (per cent)

• All airlines – 78.2
• Qantas and QantasLink – 82.0
• Virgin Australia and VARA – 79.7
• Hinterland – 87.9
• QantasLink – 82.6
• Qantas – 80.8
• Long-term average – 80.5
• Virgin Australia – 79.7
• Virgin Australia Regional Airlines – 79.0
• Jetstar – 72.1
• Skytrans (formerly SmartLynx Australia) – 71.5
• Rex – 64.7

On-time departures (per cent)

• All airlines – 79.7
• Qantas and QantasLink – 83.9
• Virgin Australia and VARA – 81.6
• Hinterland – 91.5
• Qantas – 85.1
• QantasLink – 83.2
• Virgin Australia – 81.8
• Long-term average – 81.6
• Skytrans (formerly SmartLynx Australia) – 76.6
• Virgin Australia Regional Airlines – 73.9
• Jetstar – 69.6
• Rex – 69.4

Cancellations (per cent)

• All airlines – 2.4
• Qantas and QantasLink – 2.8
• Virgin Australia and VARA – 1.4
• Rex – 4.0
• QantasLink – 3.4
• Virgin Australia Regional Airlines – 2.8
• Skytrans (formerly SmartLynx Australia) – 2.6
• Jetstar – 2.4
• Long-term average – 2.2
• Qantas – 1.8
• Virgin Australia – 1.4
• Hinterland – 1.0