Melburnian1
Enthusiast
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- Jun 7, 2013
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The October 2015 Australian domestic airline punctuality and cancellation statistics again show VA as 'top of the pops' for arriving within 15 minutes of flight timetables:
http://bitre.gov.au/publications/ongoing/files/BITRE_OTP_Report_October_2015.pdf
There is quite a positive gap for VA on the Melbourne - Sydney - Melbourne route, Australia's busiest, in how it beats QF for on time arrivals.
JQ's timekeeping on MEL - SYD or SYD - MEL (the directions are shown separately) was disastrous with almost 27 and 29 per cent of flights (southbound and northbound respectively) more than 15 minutes late, and JQ flight cancellations a huge 6.2 or 6.7 per cent on this very well patronised by world standards city pair.
At MEL recently, I observed how languid the JQ staff were when checking boarding passes at the new T4, although in fairness they know that only so many passengers per minute can join an aircraft due to passengers not boarding in strict row number order and hence blocking the aisle (and the stairs up to the aircraft) when putting carryon bags in overhead lockers. Perhaps due to late running ATC had allocated revised slot times but it certainly did not seem that JQ staff were in a hurry to get planes away even though flights were at least half an hour late. There was an element of delays compounding through the day; this depends in part as to how long the scheduled turnarounds are.
In surface transport such as railways, the aim is usually to have a cancellation rate of well under two per cent. Airlines have different operating challenges but even accounting for that, to cancel about one in every 16 timetabled flights is a very poor performance by JQ.
Although not true on every route, overall TT continues to be more punctual than JQ. Like many of us I am quite cynical about airline advertising but the ongoing TT 'change is in the air' campaign is true when it comes to its dramatically improved timekeeping compared with a small number of years ago. Many will still have a perception of TT as a constant canceller of scheduled flights or an airline unable to get a passenger to his destination at anywhere close to what the timetable says but this is now largely untrue.
Many business travellers will be wedded to one airline due to their corporate or government travel policies, but these results are something that VA can boast about.
On the much publicised transcontinental MEL or SYD to PER and return routes, VA's planes were more punctual than QF's in each direction. The gap was especially pronounced eastbound from PER to SYD where 95 per cent of VA's flights met the 'on time' definition compared to only 82.8 per cent of QF's.
I don't know what VA's load factors in business class are on the transcontinental routes but as many have commented, its J offering is superior to QF's. Given that it appears VA's punctuality is also above QF's, it will be interesting to see if businessmen and women switch to VA on these two lengthy routes.
VA Regional Airlines did however come behind ZL and QantasLink for overall 'small plane' punctuality. QantasLink's flight cancellation rate of 2.1 per cent was ten times that of Zl's 0.2 per cent, although we have to bear in mind that on 'thin routes' with only say one flight a day, cancelling it results in a percentage cancellation rate for that day of 100 per cent.
http://bitre.gov.au/publications/ongoing/files/BITRE_OTP_Report_October_2015.pdf
There is quite a positive gap for VA on the Melbourne - Sydney - Melbourne route, Australia's busiest, in how it beats QF for on time arrivals.
JQ's timekeeping on MEL - SYD or SYD - MEL (the directions are shown separately) was disastrous with almost 27 and 29 per cent of flights (southbound and northbound respectively) more than 15 minutes late, and JQ flight cancellations a huge 6.2 or 6.7 per cent on this very well patronised by world standards city pair.
At MEL recently, I observed how languid the JQ staff were when checking boarding passes at the new T4, although in fairness they know that only so many passengers per minute can join an aircraft due to passengers not boarding in strict row number order and hence blocking the aisle (and the stairs up to the aircraft) when putting carryon bags in overhead lockers. Perhaps due to late running ATC had allocated revised slot times but it certainly did not seem that JQ staff were in a hurry to get planes away even though flights were at least half an hour late. There was an element of delays compounding through the day; this depends in part as to how long the scheduled turnarounds are.
In surface transport such as railways, the aim is usually to have a cancellation rate of well under two per cent. Airlines have different operating challenges but even accounting for that, to cancel about one in every 16 timetabled flights is a very poor performance by JQ.
Although not true on every route, overall TT continues to be more punctual than JQ. Like many of us I am quite cynical about airline advertising but the ongoing TT 'change is in the air' campaign is true when it comes to its dramatically improved timekeeping compared with a small number of years ago. Many will still have a perception of TT as a constant canceller of scheduled flights or an airline unable to get a passenger to his destination at anywhere close to what the timetable says but this is now largely untrue.
Many business travellers will be wedded to one airline due to their corporate or government travel policies, but these results are something that VA can boast about.
On the much publicised transcontinental MEL or SYD to PER and return routes, VA's planes were more punctual than QF's in each direction. The gap was especially pronounced eastbound from PER to SYD where 95 per cent of VA's flights met the 'on time' definition compared to only 82.8 per cent of QF's.
I don't know what VA's load factors in business class are on the transcontinental routes but as many have commented, its J offering is superior to QF's. Given that it appears VA's punctuality is also above QF's, it will be interesting to see if businessmen and women switch to VA on these two lengthy routes.
VA Regional Airlines did however come behind ZL and QantasLink for overall 'small plane' punctuality. QantasLink's flight cancellation rate of 2.1 per cent was ten times that of Zl's 0.2 per cent, although we have to bear in mind that on 'thin routes' with only say one flight a day, cancelling it results in a percentage cancellation rate for that day of 100 per cent.
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