Timely Tiger outpaces tardy Jetstar in arriving on time
If you flew Jetstar within Australia last month you were more likely to arrive late than if you flew with any other Australian domestic carrier, latest figures show.
If you flew from or to Coffs Harbour, you were quite likely to take off or land late. And if you flew from Canberra to Sydney you were lucky that your flight wasn’t one of the 6.5% on that route that was cancelled.
Tiger Airways took the record for landing on time. Jetstar flights were on time about 76% of the time last month, compared to Tiger’s 89%. Qantas did well at 85% (though 2.7% of its flights were cancelled; almost twice the industry average) and Virgin Australia scored 78%.
Figures for March 2012 from the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE) cover all routes operated by participating airlines (Jetstar, Qantas, QantasLink, Regional Express, Skywest Airlines, Tiger Airways, Virgin Australia and Virgin Australia – ATR/F100 Operations).
They showed that, overall, the domestic and regional carriers averaged 78.7% for on-time departures, and 77.3% for on-time arrivals. Cancellations represented 1.5% of all scheduled flights. The equivalent figures for March 2011 were 79.6% for departures, 76.4% for arrivals and 1% for cancellations.
Tiger Airways operated on a reduced schedule, having been grounded by the regulator and stil resuming flights, with 824 sectors flown in March 2012 compared to 1675 in March 2011. Of the major domestic airlines, Tiger Airways achieved the highest level of on-time departures for March 2012 at 90%, followed by Qantas at 85.3%, Virgin Australia at 79.8% and Jetstar at 74.1%. Virgin Australia – ATR/F100 Operations led the regional airlines at 80.2%, followed by Regional Express at 78.9%, Skywest at 77.6% and QantasLink at 71.6%.
Tiger Airways also achieved the highest on-time arrivals among the major domestic airlines at 89%, followed by Qantas at 84.7%, Virgin Australia at 78.2% and Jetstar at 75.5%. Skywest was the best performing regional airline for on-time arrivals at 76.9%, followed by Regional Express at 76.6%, Virgin Australia – ATR/F100 Operations at 73.2% and QantasLink at 68.8%.
QantasLink had the highest percentage of cancellations for March 2012 at 2.7%, while Skywest and Tiger Airways had no cancellations.
Of the 55 routes which met the criteria for on-time performance reporting in March 2012, the Perth-Port Hedland route had the highest percentage of on-time departures (93.4 %) and the Sydney-Townsville route had the lowest percentage of on-time departures (59.3 per cent).
The Melbourne-Darwin route had the highest percentage of on-time arrivals (93.8%) and the Ballina-Sydney route had the lowest percentage of on-time arrivals (52.3 %). Cancellations were highest on the Canberra-Sydney route at 6.5%, followed by Sunshine Coast-Melbourne at 5.8%, Karratha-Perth at 5.6%, Sunshine Coast-Sydney at 5.5% and Port Hedland-Perth at 5.4%.
Port Lincoln Airport recorded the highest percentage of on-time departures (88.5 %) and Port Hedland Airport recorded the highest percentage of on-time arrivals (91.1 %). Coffs
Harbour Airport recorded the lowest percentage of on-time departures (60.2 %) and the lowest percentage of on-time arrivals (65.9 %). These figures only refer to reported routes and do not cover all flights at these airports.
The long-term average performance for all routes since reporting began in November 2003 is 84.1% for on-time departures and 82.7% for on-time arrivals. Cancellations averaged 1.2% of all scheduled flights over that period.
Written by : Peter Needham
