Aussie budget carriers axed more flights over Christmas
By Steve Creedy Tue Jan 22, 2019
Travelers flying on Australia's budget carriers over Christmas were significantly more likely to be late or have their flight canceled than those on other airlines, new statistics show.
Four out of 10 Tigerair Australia aircraft failed to leave or arrive on time in December as summer storms saw Australian airlines struggle with on-time performance over the busy Christmas travel period.
Tigerair trailed a field in which overall punctuality dipped over the holiday period and cancellations almost doubled compared to last year,
Airlines blamed the poor figures, which followed a below average November, on bad weather and congestion on the East Coast. Sydney, in particular, was affected by violent hailstorms that caused widespread damage in the run-up to Christmas.
Government figures released Tuesday show about one in 15 of Tigerair's flights were canceled as its smaller fleet struggled to cope with weather and other delays.
Tigerair’s cancellation rate of 6.7 percent was almost three times the long-term average and its arrival OTP of 60 percent and 59.8 percent fore departures was well behind that of other carriers.
The airline apologized for the delays and said it was committed to providing customers with a reliable service.
"There are sometimes factors that contribute to on-time Performance that are out of our control such as the significant weather events on the east coast in December that impacted our performance for that month,'' a spokesperson said.
“Delays and cancellations are never our preference and we sincerely apologize to customers that may be impacted by a disruption their flight.”
Bigger competitor Jetstar also fell below the national figure with 68.3 percent of flights arriving on time and 66 percent departing within the required 15 minutes of schedule. Almost one in 20 of its flights -- 4.8 percent -- were canceled.
The cancellation rates for the two budget carriers compared to 2.9 percent at Virgin Australia, 2.6 percent at Qantas and 1.5 percent for regional carriers participating in the OTP figures.
The figures combined to bring the overall cancellation rate to 2.9 percent, up from 1.5 percent in 2017 and higher than the long-term average, which is also 1.5 percent.
Overall, participating airlines averaged 75.3 percent for on-time arrivals and 76.2 percent for on-time departures, with Sunshine Coast-Sydney emerging as the route with the lowest levels of on-time departures and Proserpine-Sydney wearing the worst departure OTP.
The nation’s best routes for OTP during the month were Alice Springs-Darwin (94.7 percent arrivals) and Perth-Newman (94.1 percent departures).
The December figures compared to 79.7 percent for arrivals and 80.4 percent for departures in December 2017 and a long-term average of 82.5 percent for arrivals and 83.8 percent for departures.
Qantas achieved the highest on-time arrivals among major airlines and departures, with 76.8 percent and 77.3 percent respectively.
Regional airlines fared significantly better than their bigger counterparts with QantasLink leading the field with 82.2 percent of its departures on time, followed by Regional Express (82.2 percent) and Virgin Australia Regional Airlines (80.8 percent).
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