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Qantas has beaten Virgin Australia in on-time performance for the fifth month in a row, though its competitor maintains its edge on cancellations.
The Qantas network (Qantas and QantasLink) in October saw 75.2 per cent on-time arrivals and 76.8 per cent on-time departures compared to 72.1 per cent and 72.4 per cent respectively for Virgin and VARA, but only 1.4 per cent of VA services were cancelled compared to 2.6 per cent of QF flights.
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Jetstar placed in the middle of the pack for on-time arrivals at 73.1 per cent and cancellations at 1.9 per cent, but lost out in on-time departures at 72 per cent.
Across all participating airlines, the average was 74.1 per cent for on time arrivals and 75.2 per cent for on time departures, with 2.1 per cent of flights cancelled.
On-time performance was lower than long-term averages of 80.6 per cent for arrivals and 81.7 per cent for departures, but cancellations were slightly better than the long-term average of 2.2 per cent.
Qantas noted that its on-time departure rate was 4.4 per cent higher than Virgin’s in a month with the end of school holidays and the NRL grand final, and said it was 1.4 per cent better than in October last year, meaning around 28,000 more customers departed on time.
It also said its cancellation rate improved on last October’s, and that this reflected ongoing efforts to improve its reliability and reduce cancellations under its control.
For its part, Virgin pointed to its continued low cancellation rates and noted that every day in October was directly impacted by weather.
“Virgin Australia has maintained the lowest average cancellation rate of the major Australian airlines for 2025 so far following the release of October performance data, which showed 98.6 per cent of our scheduled domestic flights were completed last month,” said Virgin Australia general manager, Integrated Operations Centre, Danny Norman.
“Our year-to-date departure on-time performance of almost 80 per cent comes while scheduling more daily domestic flights on average than any other major Australian airline in October.
“We are focused on continuous improvement and maintaining a stable and reliable operation for those who choose to fly with us as we head into one of the busiest travel periods of the year.”
On-time arrivals (per cent)
- All airlines – 74.1
- Qantas and QantasLink – 75.2
- Virgin Australia and VARA – 72.1
- Hinterland – 92.4
- SmartLynx Australia – 83.2
- QantasLink – 77.1
- Jetstar – 73.1
- Qantas – 72.1
- Virgin Australia – 72.2
- Rex – 69.6
- Virgin Australia Regional Airlines – 61.9
On-time departures (per cent)
- All airlines – 75.2
- Qantas and QantasLink – 76.8
- Virgin Australia and VARA – 72.4
- Hinterland – 95.7
- SmartLynx Australia (formerly Skytrans) – 88.3
- QantasLink – 77.0
- Qantas – 76.4
- Rex – 73.3
- Virgin Australia – 72.6
- Jetstar – 72.0
- Virgin Australia Regional Airlines – 56.3
Cancellations (per cent)
- All airlines – 2.1
- Qantas and QantasLink – 2.6
- Virgin Australia and VARA – 1.4
- SmartLynx Australia (formerly Skytrans) – 3.9
- QantasLink – 3.1
- Rex – 2.6
- Jetstar – 1.9
- Qantas – 1.8
- Virgin Australia – 1.4
- Virgin Australia Regional Airlines – 1.2
- Hinterland – 0.1
