BITRE 2018-19 domestic air stats.: punctuality declines; cancelled flights up by almost 25 per cent

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Melburnian1

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BITRE figures just out for the financial year 2018-19 show that punctuality of our domestic airlines dropped, with more than one in four scheduled flights 15 minutes or more late, while cancellations across the domestic air network increased by almost 25 per cent, from 1.7 per cent to 2.1 per cent of timetabled flights.

QF, at 80.1 per cent of arrivals within 15 minutes of the timetable very narrowly pipped VA at 79.9 per cent. In racing parlance, that may be a 'nose' or a 'half head.'

QF's overall cancellation rate however was 2.4 per cent compared to VA's 2.0 per cent.

Melbourne - Sydney both ways flight cancellations were at an unacceptably high 6.4 per cent while Brisbane to Sydney was 3.5 and Sydney - Brisbane 3.4 per cent. These are the top two domestic routes with MEL - SYD - MEL way ahead of any other in passenger numbers.

When overseas recently, travelling on high speed rail, there were some trains five minutes apart (each carrying several times more than a B738 or A332) but no cancellations. Some of the QF and VA cancellations will have been when they schedule MEL - SYD flights at 15 minute intervals but while this may minimise the delay to passengers if they are lucky enough to be placed on the next one (assuming it operates!), unlike high speed rail, these airlines are not operating the published timetable.

It's time for an EU261-type domestic airlines compensation scheme in Oz as AFFer MEL_Traveller has suggested. Compounding the insult to travellers is that domestic air fares appear to be rising with QF and VA having ended the capacity wars. Both are trying to focus on yields, as odysseus discussed with me yesterday.

On the northbound ME:L - SYD route, 26.7 per cent of flights were more than 15 minutes late, an appalling performance, VA was best with 23.1 per cent and TT worst with 37.3 per cent of flights officially tardy. QF's cancellation rate northbound was 7.1 per cent of timetabled flights, while VA;s was 5.3 per cent. Overall, 1853 scheduled MEL - SYD northbounds did not run.

Suthbound (SYD - MEL) was even worse, despite an extra typial 10 minutes in the gate to gate timetables. 27.5 per cent of flights were more than 15 minutes late, while 6.4 per cent of all scheduled flights were cancelled. 25.6 per cent of QF's southbounds were officially late - more than one in four - while for VA, the percentage of 'late' flights was 25.1.

STD - BNE northbound was not much better time wise, with 22.4 per cent of overall flights officially tardy.

25.3 per cent of all flights into MEL arrived more than 15 minutes late. The figure for SYD was also poor, but a tad better at 23.7 per cent. Although BNE was the best of the majors at 18 per cent, that's still almost one in every four flights being officially tardy:


Overall a poor performance, even though it's in an environment where domestic passenger numbers have risen by far less than population growth as another metric showed yesterday.
 
The figures show an interesting way in which QF/VA's efforts to increase their profitability hurt frequent flyers/business travelers.

As anyone who flies regularly would know, domestic fares have been steadily rising over the last 12-24 months. The price war between QF & VA is well and truly over.

This is almost certainly dropping demand from price-sensitive customers, pushing them onto LCCs, to take less frequent airline trips or to go to cheap international destinations instead.

This means fewer seats are being filled on the busy domestic routes (eg SYD-MEL-BNE-CBR-ADL-PER), leading to more cancellations. Thus more inconvenience for frequent flyers/business travelers.

Expect this situation only to get worse as the economy continues to head south, forcing even more price-sensitive customers off these flights on QF/VA.
 
The figures show an interesting way in which QF/VA's efforts to increase their profitability hurt frequent flyers/business travelers.

As anyone who flies regularly would know, domestic fares have been steadily rising over the last 12-24 months. The price war between QF & VA is well and truly over.

This is almost certainly dropping demand from price-sensitive customers, pushing them onto LCCs, to take less frequent airline trips or to go to cheap international destinations instead.

This means fewer seats are being filled on the busy domestic routes (eg SYD-MEL-BNE-CBR-ADL-PER), leading to more cancellations. Thus more inconvenience for frequent flyers/business travelers.

Expect this situation only to get worse as the economy continues to head south, forcing even more price-sensitive customers off these flights on QF/VA.

levelnine, accurate and timely comments. In 'The Oz' of today, the CEO of Sydney Airport Mr Culbert is quoted as saying travellers have switched their focus from domestic to international flights. He was acknowledging that domestic demand has declined and commenting on how car parking revenue had commenced a (small at this stage) reduction.

Yesterday IIRC the same airport was said to be on the hunt for new routes as mainland China tourists (to Oz) were starting to wane.

The Future Fund and others like union-backed huge super funds that have invested in these large city airports may now realise that growth cannot continue every year without fail. It may resume a steady upward trajectory in the future, but as of today, the outlook isn't great.
 
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While many perceive every businessman and woman as "affluent" or "super rich", and that may be true for some, there's also a significant section of small to medium enterprise businesses that have to watch their costs closely and to some degree are price sensitive.

If there are gradually more and more cancellations, eventually our domestic airlines may put a freeze on new hires (say of cabin crew). If conditions worsened further, redundancies might loom, much as managements try to avoid them.

Look at the restaurant sector, or parts of building and construction. There's evidence of fewer employed in some subsectors, although it isn't uniform.

What is the yearly turnover (attrition rate) of airline cabin crew? 10 per cent?
 
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Tiger’s numbers have certainly got worse since VA took over. Not sure what the story is but they will never be getting my business with those numbers, I’ve not flown the since 2010. Every time I pass via a terminal it’s not just 30min delays they are cancelled or 3/4 hours behind everyday. Having a quick look on flight radar right now, there are 11 flights in the air. 7 of these have departed over 30mins late. Half of the are an hour behind.

Where are fares rising I’m not seeing or feeling it. As a weekly commuter OOL,MEL,CNS I’ve been flying VA more than JQ this year due to low prices. I recently picked up a a few months worth of $129 MEL-CNS Happy Hour fares on peak days. MEL-OOL got $89 fares recently. SYD-OOL was $70 the other day and I’m still seeing sales weekly.
 
This means fewer seats are being filled on the busy domestic routes (eg SYD-MEL-BNE-CBR-ADL-PER), leading to more cancellations. Thus more inconvenience for frequent flyers/business travelers.

Cancellations are more likely to be due to Mechanical / Crewing / Weather / ATC than planes not being filled.

If planes are "not being filled" they are cancelled months from departure. This is standard airline procedure, if they are cancelled close in you still have to pay for crew so it negates cancelling the flight.
 
Where are fares rising I’m not seeing or feeling it. As a weekly commuter OOL,MEL,CNS I’ve been flying VA more than JQ this year due to low prices. I recently picked up a a few months worth of $129 MEL-CNS Happy Hour fares on peak days. MEL-OOL got $89 fares recently. SYD-OOL was $70 the other day and I’m still seeing sales weekly.

Unfortunately (for me) the rises appear to be focused on flights involving Sydney.

I was doing some checking yesterday to look at options around some of the rises and was very surprised to see that, like your examples, the lower tier routes and those avoiding Sydney still had good pricing e.g. MEL-BNE for double the distance is blocked at $199 with Virgin whereas MEL-SYD is $226 (on Sundays, 3 months out). I would say the former is a reasonable price, whereas the latter is not.

Also regarding the Happy hours, as others have commented recently, they've dried up and gotten worse. Yesterday's only had about 5 routes out of Sydney, all low tier e.g. no SYD-ADL, SYD-MEL, SYD-BNE and a much smaller list overall compared to what they used to offer.
 
Tiger’s numbers have certainly got worse since VA took over. Not sure what the story is but they will never be getting my business with those numbers, I’ve not flown the since 2010. Every time I pass via a terminal it’s not just 30min delays they are cancelled or 3/4 hours behind everyday. Having a quick look on flight radar right now, there are 11 flights in the air. 7 of these have departed over 30mins late. Half of the are an hour behind

It really feels like Tiger has just been put in the too hard basket. It’s a sloppy operation but they don’t seem to care!
 
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