Nearly half of Virgin Australia’s flights took off or arrived late in November,and 6.3 per cent were cancelled.

“We always work hard to deliver our customers great value and choice,underpinned by a reliable and stable operation. We apologise that in November our operational performance was below our standards and did not meet all of our customers’ expectations,” Virgin said in a statement.

The airline said it had issues with crew resourcing and aircraft maintenance. It also attributed blame to Airservices Australia,which at times lacked air-traffic controllers.

Virgin announced on Thursday it would stop outsourcing baggage handling for its short-haul international operations and was considering expanding its route map. The hiring commitment will be a big investment,and followsQantas’ recent High Court loss which found it illegally sacked 1700 baggage handlers as part of an outsourcing plan during COVID-19.

Qantas Airways and its regional carrier QantasLink were on time 66 per cent of the time and cancelled less than half the number of flights as Virgin. Qantas has been more on time than Virgin for the past 15 months,despite sustained customer backlash and multiple mea culpas over the past year.

Qantas’ budget carrier,Jetstar,was the most on time of the major domestic carriers,with 68 per cent of flights on schedule and 2.7 per cent of flights cancelled.

More than 70 per cent of Regional Express and Bonza flights – which cumulatively make up less than 5 per cent of the domestic market – took off and landed on time. Bonza recorded the second-highest cancellation rate of the domestic carriers at 4.2 per cent,while Rex cancelled less than one per cent.

The number ofairline-induced cancellations has skyrocketed over the past two years as the reduced supply of aircraft and staff hamstrung carriers trying to meet high demand after the pandemic. Many things can disrupt an on-time departure,and some – weather,airport technology failures,or a lack of air-traffic controllers – are outside the airline’s control.

Almost 10 per cent of flights from Melbourne to Sydney were cancelled in November,with nine per cent cancelled from Sydney to Melbourne. Melbourne to Sydney is the fifth-most popular route in the world and its passengers routinely experience high cancellation rates.

The reason for cancellations between Melbourne and Sydney and other high-frequency routes is a cause for contention within the industry. Airports and other parts of the aviation supply chain call out Qantas and Virgin for deliberately axing flights to keep competitors from accessing the lucrative slots.

Qantas has been adamant it only cancels flights on high-frequency routes as a way to minimise disruption elsewhere. This is because routes with lower frequencies disproportionately inconvenience those travelling on them in the event of a cancellation.

The competition watchdog recently called out Sydney Airport’s slot manager,Airport Coordination Australia,as having a conflict of interest because Qantas and Virgin are its major owners.

“The slot manager needs to be independent from industry participants,so as to avoid any potential conflicts of interest,real or perceived,in carrying out the slot management functions,” the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission submitted to the government as part of its aviation green paper response.

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