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Qantas canceled almost six per cent of all domestic flights last month and about one in four arrived late as the beleaguered airline tried to overcome prolonged pilot strikes.
New data from the Bureau of Transportation and Infrastructure Economic Research showed airlines underperformed in February.
The data revealed that only 74 percent of flights left or arrived on time and that four percent were canceled by airlines before takeoff.
‘The cancellation rate was higher than the long-term average of 2.2 percent. ‘
Qantas was the worst airline for late landings and canceled flights, with just 72.7 per cent of flights arriving on time and 5.8 per cent canceled outright.
The airline blamed its reliability problems on seven 24-hour pilot strikes in Western Australia, which led to the cancellation of more than one in 20 flights.
New data from the Bureau of Infrastructure and Transportation Economic Research (BITRE) on Saturday showed that airlines underperformed in February.
Qantas was the worst offender for late landings (only 72.7 per cent of flights arrived on time) and cancellations (one in 20 were cancelled).
Most of the cancellations affected passengers traveling on its regional subsidiary QantasLink.
“We had to cancel almost 550 flights due to seven 24-hour strikes, representing more than half of our total cancellations for the month,” Qantas operations center head Daniel Dihen told 9 News.
“We also moved three Qantas Boeing 737s to Western Australia to help re-accommodate customers and mining charter flights, which also impacted weather performance across our wider network.”
Dahien added that these problems should not continue as all strikes have since been called off and their schedules have returned to normal.
Qantas’ chief operating officer said several 24-hour pilot strikes in Western Australia were to blame for the high rate of cancellations.
Rex only canceled 2.1 percent of flights in February and 72.1 percent of its trips arrived on time
Qantas is hopeful it can return to pre-pandemic levels of reliability, which saw flights running on time almost 80 per cent of the time.
Other airlines tended to do better with the exception of Virgin, which only had 71.5 percent of its flights landing and departing on time.
Rex managed to have 72.1 percent of its flights arrive on time, while Jetstar performed even better, with 76.1 percent of its flights arriving without delay.
However, Bonza outperformed both, with 81.7 percent of its flights arriving on time, making it the month’s best performer.
In terms of cancellations, Rex had the lowest rate at 2.1 percent, followed by Bonza at 2.5 percent, Jetstar at 2.6 percent and Virgin at 2.8 percent.