Friday 21 February 2025: Virgin Australia continues to lead the country’s major airlines1 on on-time performance (OTP) and the completion of scheduled flights, according to January data released by the Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics (BITRE) today.
Virgin Australia completed 99.2 per cent of scheduled domestic flights in January and achieved a departure OTP rate of 78 per cent – well ahead of its major competitors. The airline’s completion rate remains above the long-term average for Australian domestic carriers of 97.8 per cent and is closing in fast on the OTP long-term average of 80.7 per cent2.
Commentary attributable to Virgin Australia Chief Operations Officer, Stuart Aggs:
“Reliability is incredibly important to our guests, and never more so than in the holiday period when people are travelling to see family and friends,” Mr Aggs said.
“We call it SPOT – safely performing on time – and it is a responsibility our team takes very seriously, so it is great their hard work is paying off.
“In addition to improving our on-time performance, we have recorded consistently strong completion rates, with more than 99 per cent of Virgin Australia’s scheduled domestic flights operating in December and January. This is despite some weather-related challenges caused by summer storms.
“A range of measures, including additional aircraft on standby and more team members rostered on reserve, have helped us manage inevitable disruption as it arises. This minimises the impact on our schedule and our guests’ travel plans.
“Pleasingly, our strong performance has continued into February, with departure OTP around 80 per cent for the month to date. That is great news for our corporate and SME customers who are travelling again following the summer break.”
Virgin Australia has recorded a higher completion rate than its major competitor for the past 12 consecutive months, with December and January’s results being the airline’s best in the past two years.
More than 3.8 million passengers flew with Virgin Australia in December and January, making it one of the busiest holiday periods in the airline’s history3. Contributing to this was Virgin Australia’s ongoing efforts to re-accommodate Rex customers free of charge following the airline suspending jet operations in July 2024. More than 135,000 Rex customers have been rebooked on Virgin Australia services, and over 130,000 of them have now travelled.
1Major airlines include Virgin Australia, Qantas and Jetstar.
2Source: BITRE.
3Excludes when Virgin Australia Group operated Tigerair.
