AIRLINES: Australian airlines drag their landing gear in on-time performance

Cirium is an aviation data provider that has just released a report about airlines and airports, including on-time performance. This data is more interesting than the data released by the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) because it has international scope, allowing comparisons between Australian airlines and the best worldwide performers.

Best performers

The three top performers for landing their flights on time were Aero Mexico (87%), Saudia and Delta Airlines of the USA (83%), in that order. They were closely followed by LATAM (83%) and Qatar Airways (83%).

The report also ranks airport performance—Riyadh, Lima, and Mexico City airports score best—and airline performance by region and low-cost carriers. Australia does not feature in the top five of any of these categories.

Bottom of the class

All of Australia’s major airlines, Qantas, Jetstar, and Virgin Australia, rank at the bottom of the international punctuality data.

Qantas does best, with 73.9% of their flights arriving within 15 minutes of the scheduled slots. Jetstar (73.4%) and Virgin (72.7%) are in a practical tie for second place.

These are very similar to the ACCC figures for on-time arrival in September 2024, which show Qantas at 76%, Jetstar at 74%, and Virgin Australia at 73% for the month.

Competition declines domestically

There have been dramatic changes in the Australian market. These include the demise of Bonza Airlines and the severe tail clipping of REX Airlines’ operations. REX no longer competes on capital city routes, returning this segment of the market to the duopoly of Qantas Group and Virgin Australia.

Both the ACCC and the Australian Treasury have noted that reduced competition affects the performance and prices charged by the existing carriers. Virgin Australia gained 135,000 customers after REX suspended inter-capital services.

Domestic on-time arrival

Let’s examine domestic performance for on-time arrivals. This is dramatically less than the Qantas average, combining international and domestic arrival performance. From nearly 74% for both international and domestic, it plummets to only two-thirds of flights arriving on time domestically.

2PAXfly Takeout

It’s interesting to see these objective figures. They are in contrast with my own experience. Reflecting on the last 12 months, I don’t think I have had more than 1 or 2 Qantas flights depart on time out of over 30 trips.

On Virgin, with only a few flights, one was delayed by nearly 5 hours. The only two flights that I caught that notably departed on time were with REX!

The long and short of it is that Australian airlines are not meeting the on-time performance of their international competitors—far from it. With domestic competition lessening, we are unlikely to see much improvement. Why would you bother when you have the market sewn up in an effective duopoly?