Bonza’s a you-beaut on-time airline

Nearly one in four Australian flights were delayed in March and 1349 cancelled, as domestic airlines’ on-time performance edges close to prepandemic levels of reliability.

Federal data on Tuesday showed on-time performance by nine participating airlines lifted 6.2 percentage points in the past year to 77.2 per cent of services arriving on time.

It was the best month for on-time performance since

February 2022, albeit flight volumes were half the March rate and passenger volumes were still suppressed due to lingering Covid-19 laws.

Budget carrier Bonza, which operates flights out of Avalon Airport, had the strongest performance in March with 82.8 per cent of its 822 flights arriving on time.

In contrast, Cairns-based Skytrans recorded the worst on-time performance with 30.8 per cent of services arriving late, and 27.7 per cent delayed on departure. Virgin Australia, which had the worst on-time performance in February, rose to a two-year high with only 24.9 per cent of flights late, behind Rex, which had 24.5 per cent of services arrive later than scheduled.

The Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics data considered a flight “on time” if it arrived within 15 minutes of its scheduled landing time, while a cancellation was only recorded if the flight was not rescheduled within seven days.

Jetstar continued a major turnaround in reliability, with 80.9 per cent of domestic flights on time in March and cancellations down to 1.5 per cent – a strong rebound from the year before when 38.1 per cent of services were late and 7.1 per cent of flights cancelled.

Qantas achieved its best ontime performance since February 2023, with 77.3 per cent of arrivals and 78.2 per cent of its departures on time.