• Monthly Reports and time series data
• Annual reports—financial and calendar years

Summary—March 2026

For March 2026, on time performance over all routes operated by participating airlines (Hinterland, Jetstar, Qantas, QantasLink, Rex Airlines, Skytrans Australia (formerly SmartLynx Australia), Virgin Australia and Virgin Australia Regional Airlines) averaged 77.0% for on time arrivals and 78.2% for on time departures. The cancellation rate for the month was 2.7%. The equivalent figures for March 2025 were 80.2% for on time arrivals, 80.7% for on time departures and 5.0% for cancellations.

This month’s on time arrivals figure was lower than the long term average (average over the period of OTP reporting starting in November 2003) performance for all routes (80.5%) and the on time departures figure was also lower 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 80.1% for on time arrivals while the Virgin Australia network (Virgin Australia and Virgin Australia Regional Airlines combined operations) recorded 77.7%. Hinterland achieved the highest on time arrivals at 84.3%, followed by QantasLink at 82.0%, Virgin Australia at 77.8%, Qantas at 76.5%, Virgin Australia Regional Airlines at 73.2%, Jetstar at 72.7%, Skytrans Australia at 69.8% and Rex Airlines at 66.9%.

On time departures

The Qantas network recorded 81.9% for on time departures while the Virgin Australia network recorded 78.7%. Hinterland achieved the highest level of on time departures for March 2026 at 88.6%, followed by QantasLink at 82.6%, Qantas at 80.7%, Virgin Australia at 78.8%, Skytrans Australia at 73.0%, Virgin Australia Regional Airlines at 71.7%, Rex Airlines at 70.7% and Jetstar at 70.1%.

Cancellations

Skytrans Australia recorded the highest percentage of cancellations at 7.3% during the month. The second highest cancellation rate was from Virgin Australia Regional Airlines at 4.2%, followed by Rex Airlines at 4.0%, QantasLink at 3.8%, Qantas at 2.1%, Jetstar at 2.0%, Virgin Australia at 1.7% and Hinterland at 1.3%.

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 March 2026, the Brisbane-Mount Isa sector had the highest percentage of on time arrivals (95.7%), while the Perth-Newman sector had the highest percentage of on time departures (96.4%). The Hamilton Island-Sydney sector had the lowest percentage of on time arrivals (42.6%) and the lowest percentage of on time departures (50.0%).

Cancellations were highest on the Canberra-Sydney sector at 8.6%, followed by the Port Lincoln-Adelaide sector at 8.3%, the Adelaide-Port Lincoln sector at 7.9%, the Sydney-Canberra sector at 7.6%, the Devonport-Melbourne sector at 7.2%, the Melbourne-Devonport and Gladstone-Brisbane sectors at 6.5%, and the Dubbo-Sydney sector at 6.1%.

For the month of March 2026 there were 26 out of the 118 route sectors (from the 59 routes) that had zero cancellations: Adelaide-Alice Springs, Adelaide-Gold Coast, Adelaide-Perth, Alice Springs-Adelaide, Brisbane-Cairns, Brisbane-Darwin, Brisbane-Hamilton Island, Brisbane-Hobart, Brisbane-Launceston, Brisbane-Perth, Canberra-Gold Coast, Darwin-Brisbane, Gold Coast-Adelaide, Gold Coast-Canberra, Hamilton Island-Brisbane, Hamilton Island-Sydney, Hobart-Brisbane, Launceston-Brisbane, Melbourne-Cairns, Melbourne-Darwin, Perth-Adelaide, Perth-Broome, Perth-Darwin, Sydney-Hamilton Island, Ayers Rock-Melbourne, Melbourne-Ayers Rock.

Airports

Mount Isa Airport recorded the highest percentage of on time arrivals (95.7%), while Mackay Airport had the highest percentage of on time departures (92.3%). Mildura Airport recorded the lowest percentage of on time arrivals (57.4%) while Hamilton Island Airport had the lowest percentage of on time departures (57.1%). These figures only refer to reported routes and do not cover all flights at these airports.

Table 1: Total Industry On Time performance for March 2026

Figure 1: Total Industry On Time performance by month from March 2023