Image: Qantas
Australian national carrier Qantas was the most on-time domestic airline in February for the sixth consecutive month.
Almost eight out of ten Qantas flights (78.3 per cent) departed on time during the month, in line with pre-COVID performance levels. Cancellations were higher across the major airlines due to the impact of weather, including Tropical Cyclone Gabrielle and major thunderstorms in Sydney.
Ongoing Air Traffic Control staffing shortages impacted operations at Sydney Airport on 25 days out of 28 in February. This resulted in a 2.5 percentage point drop in on-time flights and 76 cancellations. Qantas is disproportionately impacted as 77 per cent of its domestic fleet operates through Sydney each day.
The strong operational performance means Qantas is well placed to keep increasing capacity to meet continued high levels of travel demand.
From today (March 27) Qantas will significantly increase flights on the Sydney-Melbourne-Brisbane triangle by 57 additional return services per week, increasing capacity by 11 points to 93 per cent of pre-COVID levels.
Qantas is also adding seats on transcontinental services to-and-from Perth using the airline’s Airbus A330 fleet. Following this change, around 50 per cent of Qantas’ flights from Melbourne and Sydney to Perth will be operated by widebody aircraft.
Over the next six months, Jetstar is boosting its domestic and international flying capacity by around 15 percentage points, with another four new Airbus A321neo LR aircraft expected to join its growing fleet, bringing the total number of these next-generation aircraft to nine.
The airline is adding a fourth weekly flight over the Easter holidays on its popular Melbourne to Margaret River (Busselton) service, boosting capacity by up to 1000 seats over the peak.
Overall, group domestic capacity will increase to 102 per cent in the April quarter, up from 98 this quarter.
Easter preparations
The increase in capacity comes as the Group gears up for another busy Easter holiday period.
Qantas and Jetstar expect to carry several million passengers across the three-week school holiday period.
Across the Easter long weekend (Thursday 6 April to Monday 10 April) more than 700,000 passengers are expected to travel on almost 5,300 domestic and international services across the group.
