QF's punctuality boast looking rather hollow

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Melburnian1

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Presumably our two main domestic airlines and their subsidiaries believe that there is money to be made (or at least revenue to be 'stolen' from the opposition) if one can boast its punctuality is better than the competitor's.

This is even though travellers know that safety is the number one objective and that punctuality measured in this way is an average of all flights and can vary markedly from day to day - flights are not as reliable as a much needed high speed lower east coast rail network would be - and vary hugely by route. For instance, QF has many problems on its Tasmanian routes with the B717s.

QF in particular likes to boast about its supposedly better punctuality. Both operators tend to emphasise 'punctual departures' whereas for travellers the key is 'how late was my flight when it arrived at my destination airport?' Unfortunately though for Qantas, this graph below shows that for the last five months, VA has beaten it:

Ontime Performance for Qantas and QantasLink | Qantas

The difference in some months is marginal averaged across all flights - VA beat QF by one per cent in the latest available month on the more important arrival times measure - as the BITRE explains for February 2015:

Airline On Time Performance Statistics —Monthly

but nonetheless this must be embarrassing for Qantas.

There can be all sorts of reasons. QF's fleet is larger than VA, while both suffer from episodes of bad weather - yesterday, fog at SYD and later in the day electrical storms - as well as artificial limitations such as SYD airport's not just 80 movements an hour limit but also 20 movements maximum in a quarter hour period (even if the total in an hour will be under 80), the latter an example of irrational regulation by government - so it is not all the airlines' fault, but if I was QF I'd be toning down my claims about domestic flight punctuality a little lest the media eventually notice.

As others have noted there is no similar boasting for international flights by any operator. QF lately has been having more than its fair share of problems with its A388s that at maximum are seven years old: many of these flights are well over 15 minutes late, the standard allowance above which a flight is regarded as 'late.' Competitors are not immune: yesterday, a CX flight was around four hours late into MEL. However there is not the same emphasis in advertising of international carriers on punctuality performance.

Do punctuality perceptions by route influence your decision as to whom to fly with domestically? What about internationally?
 
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If the choice of carrier is wide open, and there is any sort of imperative for an on-time arrival (or within an hour of it), I'll check the individual flight #s historical performance on Flight radar 24 (and the alternatives) and that will strongly inform my decision as to carrier or flight.
 
Not for me. I have been using Qantas 4 times/week for the last 18 months domestically (SYD/BNE/MOV) and haven't been more than 20 minutes departing/landing.
 
guess it really depends on the route, equipment and carrier's ability to recover - VA obviously benefits from a younger/simpler fleer whilst QF has more experience/scale to help avoid or manage schedule interruptions.

on the triangle there's really not much in it but go outside it and there's a lot of variability they people have to take into account.
 
Do punctuality perceptions by route influence your decision as to whom to fly with domestically? What about internationally?

Depends on reasons for travel - for work and if flying for a particular meeting time, then yes it would. If I'm travelling the day before then it wouldn't cross my mind. Similarly for personal travel - wouldn't be a consideration
 
Do punctuality perceptions by route influence your decision as to whom to fly with domestically? What about internationally?

I think whist there are only a few percentage points difference in punctuality between difference between airlines, performance stats are effectively meaningless, especially if there are frequent changes are in leader.

I'm more inclined to use EF or flightstats to look at recent stats for individual flights, or at the very least routes. Internationally, it's mainly an issue when it comes to connecting flights, and again more inclined to look at individual flight stats than overall averages for a particular airline.
 
Didn't know there were any issues on the HBA route with the 717 fleet - had a quick look, does anyone know the root cause of the lower than average on time performance?
 
Yes, with 52 of the 111 MEL - HBA QF flights at least 15 minutes late in February 2015 for an 'on time performance' (albeit with a generous margin of 15 minutes) of just 53.2 per cent, way below VA's 88.6 per cent and even TT's 71.4 per cent (JQ was good at 86.8 per cent), QF has a real, continuing problem.

The MEL - LST performance was also nothing startling with 77.1 per cent of southbound QF flights on time to 15 minutes in February.

The MEL - HBA flights are provided by contractor Cobham Aviation Services. There are a lot of problems with punctuality almost every month, but I do not know the root cause.
 
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Didn't know there were any issues on the HBA route with the 717 fleet - had a quick look, does anyone know the root cause of the lower than average on time performance?

Talking to my friend who works as HBA cabin crew - problems stem from a combination tight turn around schedules, catering issues in MEL and in some instances a lack of "tech" support in MEL (not HBA).

Qantas know the issues and I'm sure customers have let them know too..

Don't be surprised a schedule review this coming winter is upon HBA.
 
smatho10, thank you. Mind you, it's not the only route (or operator) in Oz with tight turnarounds, but from observation it seems one of the most consistently late. It is too late in the evening for a pun about passengers 'MONAing.'

At times, the MEL - MQL route for QF can be a poor performer punctuality wise, but in February it was pretty good. It sounds like QF needs to add an extra 20 minutes in turnarounds for the HBA run, particularly in MEL, but no airline likes doing this because it may tie up a 'scarce' gate or at least tarmac space. Trying to achieve maximum utilisation is worthy, but not if passengers (and crew!) are constantly delayed.
 
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I have heard from a source that the HBA-MEL rtn service is operated by one airframe only all day. Any ATC or other delays must impact the entire days schedule if the turnarounds are all tight as mentioned.
 
Boris, an another example of the problems QF has with its B717s on the Tasmanian routes, VH-YQS on QF1509 is running about an hour and 10 minutes late, being forecast to reach the HBA gate at 1300.

After being on time or very close to it in the morning, the QF B717 operating the HBA - MEL - HBA rotations has struck trouble with its 1330 departure for MEL as QF1504 delayed until a suggested 1411 hours, meaning that these B717 MEL flights will be late for the rest of the day given the relatively tight turnarounds.
 
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Talking to my friend who works as HBA cabin crew - problems stem from a combination tight turn around schedules, catering issues in MEL and in some instances a lack of "tech" support in MEL (not HBA).

Qantas know the issues and I'm sure customers have let them know too..

Don't be surprised a schedule review this coming winter is upon HBA.

Thanks :)

I fly fortnightly on QFLink to Tassie and have never been delayed more than 15mins clearly on a good run!

All airlines usually reduce capacity to Tassie over winter so I won't be surprised - always happens...
 
pauly7, tonight the B717 running MEL - HBA and return has got progressively later as the afternoon wore on. VH-YQU is about 55 minutes late on QF1506. As a result, QF1507 (the 1915 from MEL, due HBA 2030) is expected to respectively depart and arrive at 2010 and 2125.

For the previous three days, the arrival time of QF1507 at HBA has been 2134 (Sunday 5 April 2015), 2105 (Monday 6) and 2158 (Tuesday 7 April), so it has never been less than 35 minutes late in these last four days (including tonight) and on three of those four has been (or will be) significantly later.

Clearly unacceptable to passengers. Boris spatsky (who is a pilot, isn't he?) was naturally completely on the money about 'one airframe' above. The poor aircraft may simply be asked to do too much each day.
 
pauly7, tonight the B717 running MEL - HBA and return has got progressively later as the afternoon wore on. VH-YQU is about 55 minutes late on QF1506. As a result, QF1507 (the 1915 from MEL, due HBA 2030) is expected to respectively depart and arrive at 2010 and 2125.

For the previous three days, the arrival time of QF1507 at HBA has been 2134 (Sunday 5 April 2015), 2105 (Monday 6) and 2158 (Tuesday 7 April), so it has never been less than 35 minutes late in these last four days (including tonight) and on three of those four has been (or will be) significantly later.

Clearly unacceptable to passengers. Boris spatsky (who is a pilot, isn't he?) was naturally completely on the money about 'one airframe' above. The poor aircraft may simply be asked to do too much each day.

That probably explains why Ive been fine - I'm out and in on the early flights more often than not :)
 
Yes, pauly7, the 0600 hours flight from HBA (as with so many others) is almost religiously on time or early into MEL.
 
The BITRE figures for March 2015 show that VA has once again beaten QF in the only measure that really counts - the percentage of flights arriving on time (generously defined in aviation as 'within 15 minutes'): http://www.bitre.gov.au/publications/ongoing/files/BITRE_OTP_Report_March_2015.pdf

On Australia's busiest route, Melbourne to Sydney, northbound VA flights were punctual 88.4 per cent of the time, compared to QF's 82.7 per cent, a much bigger gap than the Australia wide routes as an average. Southbound ex SYD to MEL with the slower 95 minute schedules (85 minutes northbound), the gap was much narrower - VA 88.3 per cent, QF 87.3 per cent.

Between Sydney and Brisbane nothbound, VA beat QF by almost four percentage points, while southbound, VA at 89.4 per cent of arrivals 'on time' was 2.6 per cent better than QF.

Only 59.7 per cent of QantasLink's 119 Melbourne to Hobart flights were 'on time', showing the poor performance of the contracted Cobham B717s on this route. April 2015 may be even worse. Just 67.6 per cent of QF's MEL to PER flights were on time, compared to 79.6 per cent of VA.

Surprisingly, but perhaps a reflection of lower flight numbers, both JQ and TT beat VA and QF in punctuality on this important route, which carries more passengers each month than SYD to PER.

QantasLink cancelled 5.1 per cent of its CBR- SYD flights, an extremely high figure but reflective of highly variable passenger loadings on this very short route (and probably reduced bureaucrats' travel due to the Federal Government's budgetary position) where depending on one's destination in SYD it can be almost as fast (or faster if there are airline delays) to drive or occasionally even travel by admittedly far from fast NSWTrainLink train.
 
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