Air Ambulance Victoria conducts dozens of winch and numerous water-based rescues each year, ranging from individuals swept out to sea to patient retrievals from vessels many nautical miles off the coast.

Last month, 75.1 per cent of Virgin and VARA services arrived on time and 74.4 per cent departed on time, compared to 73.7 per cent and 73.1 per cent respectively for Qantas and QantasLink. Virgin also had the lowest cancellation rate of any airline at 0.6 per cent, according to BITRE data.

The changes, to be rolled out over the next 12 months, will see up to 1 million more Classic Reward seats go on sale through the Flying Kangaroo’s international partner airlines. They come after last year’s introduction of “Classic Plus” made more reward seats available.

The Canberra-based firm, which hopes to launch a space-based air traffic control system, will collaborate with institutions such as RMIT, Curtin and UNSW on the positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) system.