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Qantas was the world’s second most on-time major airline in April, according to aviation analytics firm OAG.
The Flying Kangaroo topped the table in the Southwest Pacific, behind only SAS Scandinavian Airlines in the global stakes, with 87.77 per cent of flights arriving on time last month and 1.75 per cent cancelled. The carrier had placed third globally in January.
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OAG, which considers both domestic and international performance in its rankings, defines a “major” airline as one that operates more than 20,000 flights per month, with Qantas the only Australian carrier in the category.
Both Jetstar and Virgin Australia are considered “large” carriers (10,000-20,000 flights per month), with Virgin placing 12th globally in that category at 84.23 per cent on-time arrivals and 0.69 per cent cancellations, and Jetstar making it into the top 25 list at number 24, with 75.84 per cent on-time arrivals and two per cent cancellations.
Across all airlines, Qantas placed 16th in the world, with Virgin at 40th and Jetstar at 101st.
It comes as Qantas says it has been continuing a concerted push to improve its on-time performance, having been named Australia’s most punctual domestic airline for 2025 in last year’s BITRE data.
“April has been the best on-time performance that we have seen in nine years. We’ve hit 86 per cent Qantas domestic and it’s coincided with the highest net promoter score that we’ve ever got,” said Qantas CEO Vanessa Hudson at the Macquarie forum this month.
Fellow analyst Cirium in January ranked Air New Zealand second in the Asia-Pacific for on-time performance across the 2025 calendar year, behind only Philippine Airlines (PAL) at 83.12 per cent; Virgin and Qantas placed eighth and ninth in the Asia-Pacific region, respectively.
According to Airservices Australia in its Australian Aviation Network Overview report for April 2026, industry on-time performance overall remained “steady” last month, with weather the main constraint to punctuality.
“This was evident on 12 April when prolonged single runway operations due to strong crosswinds in Sydney resulted in network disruptions,” the report read.
“Low OTP performance correlated with the days of most significant weather disruption. Consistent application of established cross-industry meteorological collaborative decision-making process (MET-CDM) remains key to network predictability and resilience.”
Qantas typically performs better than Virgin Australia domestically for on-time performance, but lags its rival on completion rates.
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