Qantas Boasts Industry Leading On Time Performance in October

[kangarooflyer88]

Australian Aviation had a story earlier today which reviewed the October on time performance statistics of the various domestic airlines. Apparently pigs can fly, as Qantas beat out perineal on time performance leader, Rex with Qantas reporting just 1.2% of flights were cancelled and a 74.2% on-time arrival rate. Although I haven't flown Qantas that often this year, I will say that for those complaining about the on time performance of Australian aviation to simply look at the US and Canadian airlines who make such delays seem like a minor inconvenience (granted these countries do have laws that force the airlines to provide compensation).

Anyway here's the story:

Qantas now best for cancellations in major turnaround

Qantas has completed a remarkable comeback to go from being the worst airline in the country for cancellations to being the best. It was also top for avoiding delays.

australianaviation.com.au

Here are the stats for on-time performance as reported by Australian Aviation:

Ranked: The best and worst airlines for delays in October

Jetstar had another month to forget after it was named the worst airline for delays in October and the second worst for cancellations.

australianaviation.com.au

-RooFlyer88

 

[The Flying Schwartz]

I was thinking those figures must have been tampered with because the PQQ-SYD QLink flight regularly gets cancelled (particularly the mid morning or mid afternoon), but on checking the BITRE website I can see the devil is in the definitions. Data is only recorded where there are competing airlines on the same route, and interestingly a cancellation is only a cancellation when it is made less than 7 days before the scheduled departure. We only have a QLink service here at PQQ.

Credit to QF if they are working to fix the mess.

(the cynic in me thinks there's plenty of wriggle room to game the KPIs given the definitions though )

 

[PERLHR]

Well they still managed an over two hour delay on my flight last night from Sydney to Perth. The following flight was no better I believe.

 

[oz_mark]

"Industry Leading" is still not very good.

 

[antycbr]

I know it’s not domestic but 2h30m for bags at AKL on Friday. That doesn’t show up in any stats at all regarding OTP.

 

[Cognac]

I was thinking those figures must have been tampered with because the PQQ-SYD QLink flight regularly gets cancelled (particularly the mid morning or mid afternoon), but on checking the BITRE website I can see the devil is in the definitions. Data is only recorded where there are competing airlines on the same route, and interestingly a cancellation is only a cancellation when it is made less than 7 days before the scheduled departure. We only have a QLink service here at PQQ.

Credit to QF if they are working to fix the mess.

(the cynic in me thinks there's plenty of wriggle room to game the KPIs given the definitions though )

Also remember that these figures, while not covering QFd's entire network (due to the non-competing routes and other factors), are usually consistent between reports. So the one back in July which painted a not-very-rosy picture for anybody was measured on the same stats as this one in October. So by those stats everyone does seem to be improving.

Whether that is indicative of improvement across the entire network, or that they are focusing only on those indicators, would be the subject of a different discussion.

From my experience they were fairly unreliable earlier this year (multiple cancellations and delays - even for the same flight), but I haven't had too many issues from July onwards. But that is even less reliable as information than an industry-wide comparison that at least gathers many data points!

 

[eminere]

Apparently pigs can fly, as Qantas beat out perineal on time performance leader, Rex with Qantas reporting just 1.2% of flights were cancelled and a 74.2% on-time arrival rate.

 

[Happy Dude]

1 for 1, or 100%, delay for my QF flights this year. Hard to feel QF is a "winner" here, after being stuck in POM for two days.

 

[Jean Prouvaire]

My understanding (correct me if I'm wrong) is that a flight arrival is classed as "on-time" if it arrives within 15 minutes of the scheduled time.

Personally I don't think roughly a quarter of flights being late is anything to boast about (granted, it's up to ~35-40% for other airlines), but it would be interesting to get more detailed stats on this measure.

If, for example, on average, delayed flights are only 16 minutes late, that's a relatively minor inconvenience. But if, on average, delayed flights are an hour late that's a bigger deal.

Insights into the average delayed time, or a distribution curve, would help shed light on what the actual impact on travellers is.

 

[jrfsp]

A 44-hour Jetstar delay ruined Stephen's family holiday. New figures reveal he is far from alone

An industry-wide crisis of flight delays and cancellations continues to sweep Australian aviation, with concerns about what the peak summer travel season will look like.

www.abc.net.au

Certainly lots of media coverage for better consumer protection.

I didnt know even indonesia has airline consumer delay protection!

 

[Mattg]

When is Qantas going to start publishing stats on the quality of its call centre service?

 

[TheInsider]

When is Qantas going to start publishing stats on the quality of its call centre service?

Does it really matter. It's terrible nearly all the time, most people know that!

 

[milehighclub]

Insights into the average delayed time, or a distribution curve, would help shed light on what the actual impact on travellers is.

I've always believed that performance reports should be split into two categories. Those within the airlines control and those outside. No airline will have good performance during a storm, a runway closure etc.

Airlines record the reason for every single delay. There is no avoiding it - a flight can't be delayed "just because". There are delay codes for everything - the systems make them enter the times and the reason. They can even multi assign a delay - 5 minutes slow to board and 10 minutes to ATC, as an example. And from that data, the airlines should be generically reporting from that.

 

[Mattg]

Does it really matter. It's terrible nearly all the time, most people know that!

And it won't improve unless there's a KPI attached to this which affects an executive's bonus

 

[kangarooflyer88]

I know it’s not domestic but 2h30m for bags at AKL on Friday. That doesn’t show up in any stats at all regarding OTP.

The US Department of Transportation's statistics bureau publishes baggage data, it shouldn't be too difficult for BITRE to report similar statistics. Then again, the Golden rule of not checking bags is a good one if you value your time.

When is Qantas going to start publishing stats on the quality of its call centre service?

Similarly no statistics here from BITRE but when Choice did an informal study they found the average wait time with QF to be about 40 minutes.

-RooFlyer88

 

[eastwest101]

Yep - obviously some "gaming" of the definitions and massaging of what is canceled and what is not, going on here in these stats.

I have been flying all 4 airlines pretty regularly, and it does look like QF domestic is improving from a terrible base in early 2022, and Virgin domestic got back in the air quicker in 2022 but are now hitting their own problems (probably crew-related and lack of capacity issues) now, Rex is performing much the same as before for me (albeit with a smaller and more regionally focussed network) and Jetstar has been the obvious disaster zone, both for Jetstar domestic flights, and much more problematic for the few Jetstar international flights that I have been booked on.

Domestic fares are still eye-watering in places but it looks like QF and VA prices are starting to converge now. Aircraft are still pretty full on most routes, but not as bad as earlier in the year.

 

[RooFlyer]

Australian Aviation had a story earlier today which reviewed the October on time performance statistics of the various domestic airlines. Apparently pigs can fly, as Qantas beat out perineal on time performance leader, Rex with Qantas reporting just 1.2% of flights were cancelled and a 74.2% on-time arrival rate. Although I haven't flown Qantas that often this year, I will say that for those complaining about the on time performance of Australian aviation to simply look at the US and Canadian airlines who make such delays seem like a minor inconvenience (granted these countries do have laws that force the airlines to provide compensation).

Anyway here's the story:

Qantas now best for cancellations in major turnaround

Qantas has completed a remarkable comeback to go from being the worst airline in the country for cancellations to being the best. It was also top for avoiding delays.

australianaviation.com.au

Here are the stats for on-time performance as reported by Australian Aviation:

Ranked: The best and worst airlines for delays in October

Jetstar had another month to forget after it was named the worst airline for delays in October and the second worst for cancellations.

australianaviation.com.au

-RooFlyer88

Newsflash!! Qantas not as bad as the others for the month of October. And even going close to the service standard they should be providing nearly all the time.

National holiday declared.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

Newsflash!! Qantas not as bad as the others for the month of October. And even going close to the service standard they should be providing nearly all the time.

National holiday declared.

Wouldn't a Qantas National Holiday mean that all Qantas services as suspended?

 

[RooFlyer]

Wouldn't a Qantas National Holiday mean that all Qantas services as suspended?

Could you tell the difference?

 

[Vic]

Really interesting that this links to a third party story and not direct to the BITRE report...