Qantas and Jetstar Airways have been ranked among the top 20 airlines for punctuality in 2018, a report says.
The Punctuality League report from aviation consultancy OAG said Qantas was the sixth most punctual carrier of 2018 with an on-time performance of 85.65 per cent. The airline drops one place from fifth in in 2017.
Copa Airlines climbed four spots to top the list in 2018, with the Central American carrier’s on-time performance rising four percentage points to 89.79 per cent.
airBaltic, which achieved an on-time performance of 89.17 per cent, slipped to second, with Hong Kong Airlines (88.11 per cent) third.
The report was based on 58 million fight records using full-year data from 2018, with on-time performance defined as a flight that departed or arrived within 15 minutes of schedule, the report said. Cancellations were also included.
Among low-cost carriers (LCC), Brazil’s Azul was best with an on-time performance of 85.21 per cent, ahead of Jetstar Asia in second place at 84.13 per cent.
Australia/New Zealand-based LCC Jetstar Airways squeezed into the top 20 in 19th place in this category at 74.33 per cent.
On a geographical basis, the OAG report said Hong Kong Airways, Bangkok Airways (87.16 per cent) and Qantas were the top three carriers in the Asia Pacific in 2018.
However, the report said Air New Zealand and Virgin Australia dropped out of the top 10 for Asia Pacific airlines in 2018.
Airports
Australian airports were also well represented in the punctuality stakes.
In the small airports category – defined as having between 2.5 million and five million departing seats a year – Cairns Airport was ninth place at 83.70 per cent. Minsk was best at 92.35 per cent.
Two Australian airports were in the top 20 in the medium airports category (5-10 million departing seats), with Adelaide ranked 13th at 82.95 per cent and Perth 16th at 81.94 per cent. The pair trailed Panama City – incidentally the hub of Copa Airlines, which led the pack at 91.11 per cent.
Brisbane Airport was the highest ranked Australian airport in any category. The airport was ranked eighth for large airports with between 10-20 million departing seats thanks to its 82.58 per cent on-time performance. Osaka Itami retained its place at the top of the list with at 88.22 per cent.
“OTP is a very important measure of multiple systems and schedules working efficiently, despite being significantly influenced by factors beyond our control such as weather and complexities within the broader national and international network,” Brisbane Airport chief executive Gert-Jan de Graaff said in a statement.
“We cannot achieve the result we have without the extensive work, research, technology and innovation being done in this area by so many of our partners across Australia and the world.
“The very good news is, we expect OTP to continue to improve with the opening of Brisbane’s new runway in mid-2020 which will effectively double Brisbane Airport’s capacity, providing us with the most efficient runway system in Australia.”
Rounding out the Australian airports was Melbourne and Sydney, which ranked 18th and 17th, respectively in the major airports category (20-30 million departing seats per year). Tullamarine achieved an on-time performance of 74.69 per cent, while Sydney Kingsford Smith was at 76.10 per cent. Moscow Sheremetyevo rose two places to lead the pack at 87.00 per cent.
Tokyo Haneda topped the mega airports category, which covers airports with more than 30 million departing seats, at 85.62 per cent.
“To qualify for inclusion in the OAG Punctuality League, the OAG schedules database must have flight status data for at least 80 per cent of all scheduled flights operated by an airline or for an airport,” the report said.
