Airline on-time performance statistics—monthly summary

• Airline on-time performance—monthly reports and time series data
• Airline on-time performance—annual reports (financial and calendar years)

Summary—August 2026

For August 2026, on-time performance over all routes operated by participating airlines (Hinterland, Jetstar, Qantas, QantasLink, Rex Airlines, Skytrans Australia, Virgin Australia and Virgin Australia Regional Airlines) averaged 81.4% for on-time arrivals and 81.7% for on-time departures. The cancellation rate for the month was 1.1%. The equivalent figures for August 2025 were 74.6 % for on-time arrivals, 75.5% for on-time departures and 2.4% for cancellations.
This month’s on-time arrivals figure was higher than the long-term average (averaged over the period of OTP reporting starting in November 2003) performance for all routes (80.5%) and the on-time departures figure was also higher than the long-term average (81.6%). The rate of cancellations was higher than the long-term average of 2.2%.
 

On-time arrivals

The Qantas network (Qantas and QantasLink combined operations) recorded 83.6% for on-time arrivals while the Virgin Australia network (Virgin Australia and Virgin Australia Regional Airlines combined operations) recorded 81.1%. Hinterland achieved the highest on-time arrivals at 95.0%, followed by QantasLink at 83.7%, Qantas at 83.5%, Virgin Australia at 81.2%, Jetstar at 76.7%, Rex Airlines at 75.8%, Virgin Australia Regional Airlines at 74.7% and Skytrans at 73.1%.

On-time departures

The Qantas network recorded 83.9% for on-time departures while the Virgin Australia network recorded 81.7%. Hinterland achieved the highest level of on-time departures for August 2026 at 97.5%, followed by Qantas at 85.9%, QantasLink at 82.8%, Virgin Australia at 81.8%, Rex Airlines at 78.5%, Virgin Australia Regional Airlines at 77.0%, Jetstar at 74.6% and Skytrans Australia at 74.3%.

Cancellations

Skytrans Australia recorded the highest percentage of cancellations at 4.1% during the month. The second highest cancellation rate was from Rex Airlines at 1.9%, QantasLink at 1.7%, Virgin Australia at 0.9%, Qantas at 0.8%, Jetstar at 0.5% and Hinterland and Virgin Australia Regional Airlines both at 0.0%.

Routes

Airlines’ on-time performance varies across the routes they serve. Individual route data by specific airline for 59 routes (118 sectors when counting both directions of flights) are shown on pages 10-21.
Of the 59 routes which met the criteria for on-time performance reporting in August 2026, the Melbourne-Ayers Rock sector had the highest percentage of on-time arrivals (100.0%), while the Perth-Adelaide sector had the highest percentage of on-time departures (94.2%). The Hamilton Island-Sydney sector had the lowest percentage of on-time arrivals (51.7%) and the lowest percentage of on-time departures (48.3%). 
Cancellations were highest on the Orange-Sydney sector at 8.7%, followed by the Sydney-Orange sector at 8.5%, the Port Lincoln-Adelaide sector at 5.1%, the Adelaide-Port Lincoln sector at 4.3%, the Canberra-Melbourne sector at 3.8% and the Port Macquarie-Sydney sector at 3.4%.
For the month of August 2026 35 of the 118 route sectors (from the 59 routes) had zero cancellations: Adelaide-Alice Springs, Adelaide-Gold Coast, Alice Springs-Adelaide, Brisbane-Darwin, Brisbane-Hamilton Island, Brisbane-Hobart, Brisbane-Launceston, Brisbane-Mount Isa, Brisbane-Perth, Brisbane-Proserpine, Brisbane-Rockhampton, Cairns-Melbourne, Canberra-Gold Coast, Darwin-Melbourne, Darwin-Perth, Gold Coast-Adelaide, Gold Coast-Canberra, Hamilton Island-Brisbane, Hamilton Island-Sydney, Launceston-Brisbane, Launceston-Sydney, Melbourne-Cairns, Melbourne-Darwin, Melbourne-Sunshine Coast, Mount Isa-Brisbane, Newman-Perth, Perth-Broome, Perth-Darwin, Perth-Newman, Proserpine-Brisbane, Sunshine Coast-Melbourne, Sydney-Hamilton Island, Sydney-Launceston, Ayers Rock-Melbourne and Melbourne-Ayers Rock.
 

Airports

Ayers Rock Airport recorded the highest percentage of on-time arrivals (100.0%) while Emerald Airport had the highest percentage of on-time departures (93.4%). Port Macquarie Airport recorded the lowest percentage of on-time arrivals (62.9%) while Hamilton Island Airport had the lowest percentage of on-time departures (49.2%). These figures only refer to reported routes and do not cover all flights at these airports.

Table 1: Total industry on-time performance for August 2026

Figure 1: Total industry on-time performance by month from August 2023