Qantas has hit back at the headlines claiming the airline had the worst on-time performance and cancelled 10 flights a day through October.
Some media outlets have taken selected data or data out of context and still ran negative stories despite detailed explanations from Qantas.
So here are the facts;
Firstly the latest government data show Qantas has continued to be the most on-time major domestic airline, despite significant disruptions caused by weather in October.
And October is the 14th consecutive month that Qantas has outperformed its major competitor for on-time flights.
The data shows 73 per cent of Qantas flights departed on time and 3.9 per cent of flights were cancelled. This compares to Virgin with 68.8 per cent of flights departing on time and a cancellation rate of 4.1 per cent.
But here are the critical factors impacting October:
- There were only six days in October when the weather didn’t cause delays and cancellations to the network.
- Thunderstorms and strong winds impacted operations in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra and led to single runway operations on seven separate days at Sydney Airport, which had a flow-on impact on flights across the country.
- A huge 42 flights were cancelled due to lightning strikes on aircraft and the time required to undertake engineering checks before the aircraft returned to service.
- Industrial action in Western Australia on October 4 by one of the pilot’s unions caused dozens of flight cancellations in Western Australia.
- Staff Shortages with Air Services Australia air traffic controllers continue to cause disruptions.
What is not appreciated is that aircraft do up to five sectors a day and thus a delay, particularly in the morning will impact five flights - not one flight- for the rest of the day.
With tight turnarounds, there is virtually no opportunity to pick up time and get the schedule back on time.
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