Qantas lifting its game

But bring-it-on Virgin’s brag turns to lag

AFTER months of customer ire and poor performance, Qantas is back at the top of punctuality rankings as its rival Virgin Australia sinks.

The Qantas cancellation rate fell from 2.5 per cent to 1.2 per cent in October, data from the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics shows. Some 25.8 per cent of the airline’s flights landed on time.

Virgin Australia scrapped 3.6 per cent of flights, and 35.5 per cent were delayed in landing. But Qantas’ low-cost subsidiary Jetstar posted even worse results – it cancelled 3.9 per cent of flights in the month, and more than a third – 35.6 per cent – landed at least 15 minutes behind schedule.

The results come in the same month as Virgin moved to capitalise on customer anger directed toward its larger rival with the launch of its Bring on Wonderful promotion.

Appearing on Nine’s Today program on October 24, Virgin chief executive Jayne Hrdlicka said the airline’s on-time performance was in the “high-60s, mid-70s again, and cancellation rates were as low as they had ever been in our history”.

On Monday, a Virgin spokeswoman said the October results reflected “ongoing challenges associated with the significant and rapid increase in flying activity”.

The airline operated more than 10,800 flights in the month, compared with Qantas’s 7633, Jetstar’s 6693 and Rex’s 6673.

The busy Melbourne-Sydney route had one of the highest cancellation rates at 5.8 per cent, topped by Jetstar, which axed 11.3 per cent of flights on the route.

A flight is regarded as a cancellation if it is cancelled or rescheduled less than seven days before its scheduled departure time.

The BITRE report noted the results across all airlines were significantly lower than the long-term average performance for all routes, at 81.8 per cent for arrivals and 83 per cent for departures.

“This month’s figures were impacted by weather-related events and Covid-19-related issues,” the report reads.

The improved results for Qantas follow a better-thanexpected trading update in October, with the company guiding underlying profit before tax of some $1.2bn to $1.3bn, significantly higher than market forecasts of $463m for the six months to December 31.

“The strong guidance compared to our forecast is due to higher unit revenue (ticket price) driven by strong demand and constrained capacity,” Credit Suisse analyst Paul Butler wrote in a note to clients at the time.

In a statement, Qantas said the airline “aimed to keep on time performance in the mid-70s for the remainder of the calendar year, factoring in the forecast for more extreme weather”.

“This aligns with the circa 75 per cent on-time performance by the national carrier in November and December 2019,” the airline said.

Rex recorded a 2.2 per cent cancellation rate and landed 68.3 per cent of flights on time, while 70.5 per cent took off within 15 minutes of schedule.

Last week, Sydney Airport chief executive Geoff Culbert told an industry conference that the sector would be tested over the holidays. “But I am quietly confident that most passengers will have a Christmas airport experience similar to pre-Covid,” he said.