Qantas customers had more on time flights and fewer cancellations in January 2023 than in the same month pre-COVID, making the national carrier the most punctual major domestic airline for five months in a row, the airline claims.
As per the data shared by the Australian Government Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics (BITRE), the On-time performance by Qantas this summer peak was 78.4%, better than the same period pre-COVID (December 2019-January 2020) when 76.8% of flights departed on-time.
January’s performance was at its highest level since February 2022, with 81.5% of flights departing on time and 75.3% in December 2022. Across both months 90% of flights landed at their destination within 30 minutes of their scheduled arrival time.
Qantas outperformed its main domestic competitor (Virgin Australia) on punctuality by around 7 percentage points over the summer peak and for eight out of the past 12 months, the airline said in a statement.
The airline cancellation rate was 2.8% in January 2023, compared to 3.1% of flights in January 2020.
The improved performance was helped by a $200 million investment to roster additional crew, train new recruits and keep up to 20 aircraft on standby that were called upon to reduce delays and cancellations.
Qantas has confirmed that its turn back rate over the past 12 months remains consistent with pre-COVID. For Qantas mainline these averages 1 for every 2,000 flights or around 60 per year.
Regional airline QantasLink averages over 200 air returns with a higher number of total flights and because a varying degree of technical and other support at remote airports makes it more practical to turn back to a capital city when technical or weather-related issues occur.
There are more than 10,000 air returns globally each year.