Who's the Most Punctual in Australia? Virgin Australia

27th Nov 2015

The monthly punctuality results for Australian on-time arrivals and departures from BITRE are here and this time it's Virgin who tops the list.

In October, Virgin Australia edged ahead of rival companies Qantas, TigerAir and Jetstar, with 89.8 of its arrivals reaching their scheduled destinations within 15 minutes, the Bureau of Infrastructure and Regional Economics revealed.

This way, Virgin took the crown (at least for one month) from Qantas, which was the most punctual in September. The Flying Kangaroo dropped to second place in October with 88.3 per cent, followed by Tigerair Australia and Jetstar, which had 85.4 and 80.2 per cent on-time arrivals respectively.

When it comes to on-time departures, Virgin topped those stats for October as well. The airline had 91 per cent on-time departures, which was nearly 2 per cent better than Qantas' 89.1 per cent.

As for the regional carriers, BITRE reported that Rex (Regional Express) had the most on-time arrivals (87.9 per cent). They were closely followed by QantasLink at 86.9, while Virgin Australia Regional Airlines trailed behind with 83.9 per cent.

Looking at the combined figures, Virgin Australia/Virgin Australia Regional Airlines had 88.8 per cent on-time arrivals, while its rival Qantas/QantasLink was punctual 87.6 per cent of the time.

When it comes to airports, passengers at Ayers Rock Airport had to wait the least for their flight to depart, as this airport had a pretty good result of 96.7 per cent on-time departures. Among the specific routes, the highest percentage of on-time arrivals was on Canberra-Adelaide, 97.3 per cent, BITRE reported.

Here are the on-time arrivals for October, with the percentage point change from last month in the brackets):

1. Virgin Australia 89.9% (-1.5)

2. Qantas 88.3% (-3.5)

3. Rex 87.9% (+0.4)

4. QantasLink 86.9% (-1.3)

5. Tigerair 85.4% (-1.0)

6. Virgin Australia Regional 83.9 % (+)

7. Jetstar 80.2% (-2.9)

On-time departures:

1. Virgin 91.0% (-1.0)

2. Rex 90.7% (+0.4)

3. Qantas 89.1% (-2.7)

4. QantasLink 88.7% (-0.1)

5. Tigerair 86.8% (-0.1)

6. Virgin Australia Regional 86.0% (+3.7)

7. Jetstar 76.9% (-3.5)