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Virgin Australia has scored a third consecutive reliability hat-trick, beating Qantas in on-time departures, on-time arrivals, and completions for February 2025.
The latest BITRE performance data showed more than 80 per cent of all domestic flights across participating airlines departed and arrived on time last month, though this was still below long-term averages of 80.7 per cent on-time arrivals and 81.8 per cent on-time departures.
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Across the network, 2.6 per cent of flights were cancelled, higher than the long-term average of 2.2 per cent.
Virgin Australia and VARA flights combined saw 81.9 per cent on-time arrivals and 82.7 per cent on-time departures, compared to 81.3 per cent and 81.2 per cent respectively for Qantas and QantasLink.
Only 1.5 per cent of VA-designated flights were cancelled, less than half of QF-designated flights’ 3.6 per cent.
Jetstar, meanwhile, saw 76.1 per cent on-time arrivals and 73.5 per cent on-time departures, with 1.6 per cent of flights cancelled.
According to Virgin, more than 80 per cent of its cancellations since January have been due to factors outside of its control, including weather.
“We’re proud to achieve our third consecutive month of industry-leading reliability, while scheduling and operating more daily flights on average than any other Australian carrier in February,” said Virgin’s general manager Integrated Operations Centre, Danny Norman.
“We’ve been working hard to improve our operational performance over the past 12 months, and achieving our strongest OTP of the past two years and exceeding the long-term average reflects this hard work.
“While factors like weather will sometimes require unplanned changes to our schedule, getting our guests to their destinations safely and on time is a priority.”
For its part, Qantas said its OTP reached two-year highs in February due to “ongoing efforts by the national carrier to improve reliability”.
“Qantas (which is made up largely of the B737 fleet) had its best month in three years with 82.3 per cent of flights departing on time,” the airline said.
“In February, Qantas confirmed it will expand its group boarding process across all regional, domestic and international flights departing Australia. Since group boarding was introduced in June 2024 on some domestic 737 flights, boarding times have been three minutes faster on average.
“Jetstar’s strong operational performance continued in February with 73.5 per cent of flights departing on time. It was also the seventh month in the past year where the low-cost carrier had a cancellation rate below 2 per cent.”
On-time arrivals (per cent)
- Virgin Australia and VARA – 81.9
- Qantas and QantasLink – 81.3
- Skytrans – 86.5
- Hinterland – 82.0
- Qantas – 82.2
- Virgin Australia – 82.0
- QantasLink – 80.7
- Rex – 77.0
- Jetstar – 76.1
- Virgin Australia Regional Airlines – 75.5
On-time departures (per cent)
- Virgin Australia and VARA – 82.7
- Qantas and QantasLink – 81.2
- Hinterland – 88.1
- Skytrans – 86.5
- Virgin Australia – 82.9
- Qantas – 82.3
- QantasLink – 80.5
- Rex – 80.1
- Virgin Australia Regional Airlines – 73.6
- Jetstar – 73.5
Cancellations (per cent)
- Virgin Australia and VARA – 1.5
- Qantas and QantasLink – 3.6
- Skytrans – 8.9
- QantasLink – 4.1
- Qantas – 2.8
- Virgin Australia Regional Airlines – 2.7
- Rex – 1.7
- Hinterland – 1.7
- Jetstar – 1.6
- Virgin Australia – 1.5
