Thursday, August 22, 2024 Qantas emerged as the most punctual major domestic airline in July, with new government data highlighting that Qantas and QantasLink flights were on time 74.1% of the time, surpassing its main competitor, which achieved a punctuality rate of 73%. Between April and July, nearly 80% of Qantas flights departed as scheduled, approaching long-term punctuality averages.
This marks Qantas’ best July performance since 2021, though it represents a slight dip from recent months due to severe weather disruptions. The airline faced significant weather-related challenges, including strong winds that caused delays and cancellations on 27 of the 31 days in July. Additionally, Sydney Airport experienced constraints, operating with just one runway on nine separate days.
In terms of cancellations, Qantas saw 3.2% of its domestic flights cancelled in July, a marginal improvement from June’s 3.3%.
Jetstar, on the other hand, was notably affected by the global Crowdstrike outage, resulting in nearly 150 flight cancellations. In total, 3.7% of Jetstar’s domestic flights were cancelled last month, with 65% of flights departing on time.
Comments from a Qantas spokesperson: “Our punctuality for the month was our best July result since 2021 and shows we’re continuing to climb back towards long-term averages. Over the past four months, almost 80 per cent of Qantas flights have departed on time.” Comments from Jetstar Chief Operating Officer Matt Franzi: “We had some significant operational challenges during July but our cancellation rate remained low, with just 3.
7 per cent of domestic flights cancelled. “The Crowdstrike software outage affected services and companies across the globe and it was a challenging day for our operation that resulted in significant disruption. “Once our systems were back up and running, our teams were able to reaccommodate everyone affected by this incident.
“As a result of Crowdstrike and some poor weather conditions, our on time performance decreased from past months to 65 per cent of flights departing on time. “Despite these challenges, our teams continue to work hard to make sure that our flights are on time for our customers.”.
