Tiger #1, Virgin last in OTP 08

[pauly7]

November 08 stats are out - interesting to see that total PAX numbers are still up 08 v 07 but i think that may be ending from this year...

Tiger narrowly beats QF and JQ for #1, with Virgin a few points back. Seems Tiger can get the flights it doesn't cancel there in time .

Busiest air route big on delays

• Dan Harrison, Canberra
• January 17, 2009

THE Melbourne-Sydney air route — Australia's busiest — is also among the nation's worst for cancellations and delays, government statistics show.
If you flew from Sydney to Tullamarine, a route operated by Qantas and Virgin Blue, you would have a one-in-three chance of arriving late, while almost a quarter of flights in the other direction were delayed by more than 15 minutes, according to figures from the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics released yesterday.
The newest results, for November 2008, also show the route was the third-worst for cancellations, with almost one in 20 flights scrapped — more than five a day.

Busiest air route big on delays | theage.com.au

 

[Evan]

Well thats something i would have not expected for 2 reasons...

Tiger has a terrible reputation at the moment and DJ currently i thought had a good reputation, well there is "Lies, damned lies, and statistics"
so who really knows...
And QF has a not to great receord recently either... (Then again every QF flight i have taken in the last year or 2 except 1 single flight has been on-time !)

E

 

[oz_mark]

Tiger does avoid the whole issue that is called Sydney Airport though.

 

[Mal]

Of course, reference to the official report is probably best:
http://www.bitre.gov.au/publications/14/Files/BITRE OTP Report Nov 2008.pdf

Of particular note:

Of the major domestic airlines, Qantas achieved the highest level of on time departures
for November 2008 at 79.8 per cent, followed by Jetstar at 78.4 per cent, Tiger Airways
at 76.8 per cent, and Virgin Blue at 76.3 per cent. Skywest was the best performing
regional airline with 87.2 per cent departures on time, followed by QantasLink
(80.1 per cent), Regional Express (78.0 per cent) and MacAir (76.0 per cent).

Tiger Airways achieved the highest on time arrivals among the major domestic airlines at
78.6 per cent, followed closely by Jetstar at 78.4 per cent, Qantas at 78.2 per cent, and
Virgin Blue at 73.1 per cent. Skywest was also the best performing regional airlines for
on time arrivals at 85.5 per cent, followed by QantasLink (76.2 per cent), MacAir
(75.7 per cent) and Regional Express (72.8 per cent).

And, remember that the stats are just that - cancelling a flight > 7 days before departure isn't recorded, and "On Time" has a 15 min leeway before it is reported as late.

 

[oz_mark]

Intersting that the age has chosen to use the Arrival statistics rather than the departur statistics. I wonder why.

 

[pauly7]

Intersting that the age has chosen to use the Arrival statistics rather than the departur statistics. I wonder why.

I guess maybe they think the time you arrive is actually more important to the passenger... I mean its great when you leave 20 mins late but you make up the time due to a tailwind and arrive on time / early....

But yes it is a departure from reporting departure times (excuse the bad joke) as that is what airlines should be striving for.

 

[Mal]

Intersting that the age has chosen to use the Arrival statistics rather than the departur statistics. I wonder why.

While, I believe OTA is a better figure (not worried when I leave, as long as I turn up on time), I presume the figure was chosen simply for this fact:

"Qantas achieved the highest level of on time departures for November 2008 at 79.8 per cent"

No media chain enjoys praising Qantas. Perhaps they should start reporting on the number of flights Tiger cancels >7days, the number of timetable changes that happen and similar factoids.

 

[pauly7]

Well thats something i would have not expected for 2 reasons...

Tiger has a terrible reputation at the moment and DJ currently i thought had a good reputation, well there is "Lies, damned lies, and statistics"
so who really knows...
And QF has a not to great receord recently either... (Then again every QF flight i have taken in the last year or 2 except 1 single flight has been on-time !)

E

Yes Tiger has a bad rep - but haven't seen much about them being horrifically late all the time.

My last couple of months on QF have been a massive improvement from the union strike times... all on time for the last 7!

Haven't flown Virgin for 3 months but something must be going on there....

 

[Evan]

Yes i would have to agree what time i arrive is most important and 15mins is nothing really.
But that means QF had OTA a full 5.1% better than DL across the network, actually impressive.
Also OTA arrival stats can be dodgy'ed like pushing back from the gate 5 meters to make an OTD.

I guess the greater than 7 days flight cancellations keeps Tiger our of trouble

E

 

[oz_mark]

While I don't disagree that OTA is a more important stat than OTD, it is not the one that the media have typically used (in fact I think it was Qantas that first started to really use it). Was just interesting that they chose to go this way this time.

 

[pauly7]

While I don't disagree that OTA is a more important stat than OTD, it is not the one that the media have typically used (in fact I think it was Qantas that first started to really use it). Was just interesting that they chose to go this way this time.

Yes... I actually agree with Mal, the media cynic in me thinks its because QF topped the OTD's and reporting that would break their long running fear-mongering theme of reporting life threatening disasters (choke) on QF as often as possible.

 

[Evan]

QF bashing is almost like a national sport it seems sometimes. Ok sometimes is deserved but living in SIN most of the year and having SQ as our prefered work airline i can tell you QF is something to be proud of, i am not saying its better, simply that they do a rather good job.

I would be interested how the likes of SQ, CX etc go with these OTA and OTD rates, and the CN airlines, well no comment every time i fly in that part of the world i am thankful to be on a decent airline that does not just cancel flights.

E

 

[Mal]

I suppose the issued with OTA is that airlines can just 'pad' out their schedules to allow for catchup when they are late.

Take a hypothetical timetable:
Tigqanvir Airlines - MEL-SYD, DEP: 10:00 ARR: 14:00

If Tigqanvir Airlines decided to put this in their timetable, then they would (hopefully) never be late.

A much smaller version of this has been happening in Australia - eg Qantas extended flight times by a few mins on the timetable to allow for some flexibility in arrival time.

As indicated earlier - they're just selected statistics. Do they mean much? Maybe - but should be read in context. Perhaps we need to sample and discuss various airlines and their flying time between cities (according to timetable)

 

[Evan]

The question is how much padding is ok ? after all they need to account for the regular delays at airports as well as head winds etc.
But your right it would make sense to have that discussion. Also different planes like 767 may take longer to load / un-load compared to 737's and if you plan to substitute then you need to take into account that as well.
E

 

[N860CR]

That's an interesting point and may explain something that I noticed last week. I have about 8 forward bookings for ROK-BNE in the next 2 months and they were all rescheduled last week. What's interesting is that the "block to block" time was extended by 20 minutes. So, either the Q400 has had a drastic cruise speed reduction, or Qantas (link in this case) have added a bit of a "buffer" on the flight time. The last few ROK-BNE flights I've taken have all departed and arrived late (one by 4 hours), so maybe Mal's hit the nail on the head there.

For the sake of equality, DJ still quotes a 1 hour startup to shutdown flight on the sector.

 

[oz_mark]

I suppose the issued with OTA is that airlines can just 'pad' out their schedules to allow for catchup when they are late.

Take a hypothetical timetable:
Tigqanvir Airlines - MEL-SYD, DEP: 10:00 ARR: 14:00

If Tigqanvir Airlines decided to put this in their timetable, then they would (hopefully) never be late.

Although one would think they would get pretty coughpy utilisation out of their fleet!

A much smaller version of this has been happening in Australia - eg Qantas extended flight times by a few mins on the timetable to allow for some flexibility in arrival time.

If there is a chronic systemic problem that is out of your control (say congestion at SYD causing ongoing delays on arrival), why wouldn't you account for this in your timetable.

 

[pauly7]

If there is a chronic systemic problem that is out of your control (say congestion at SYD causing ongoing delays on arrival), why wouldn't you account for this in your timetable.

Yes... its not uncommon you will see differences in times e.g. if you look at QF Mel/Syd on the same metal they allow an extra 5 mins on the Mel/Syd route than Syd/Mel

 

[Standby]

The BITRE data makes interesting reading for those with the time.
Besides the highlevel OTP numbers (which still weren't great for QF at sub80%) some interesting points
-DJ had not only a worse OTP but also a higher flight Cancel rate (although SYDMEL for both QF/DJ pretty close..but of significant number...1/2 hrly flight cancel to get the rest of the network back in sync with least overall customer impact-that goodness for the lounge and earlier bar hours these days)
-The OTP difference between % OTD and % OTA again showed a bigger"gap for DJ.
-DJ worse diff between OTD and OTA% was BNE PER with only a 20% OTA in the month.
This highlights the limitation of 737s on the longest regularly flown Dom route vs QF predominately 767s.
Having said that this is 1 months data,admittedly DJ had a bit of a shocker but they'll improve and its good to see graphically the month on month QF improvements..but still room to improve more

 

[pauly7]

Having said that this is 1 months data,admittedly DJ had a bit of a shocker but they'll improve and its good to see graphically the month on month QF improvements..but still room to improve more

Another article which is much better and goes into alot of the data you talk about above... plus they are brave enough to quote Qantas as the best performer!

Flying to and from Melbourne a lesson in patience - Travel - smh.com.au

 

[Evan]

<..>
This highlights the limitation of 737s on the longest regularly flown Dom route vs QF predominately 767s.
<..>

Just wondering why there is a difference ? i must be missing something because i thought the larger longer to load/unload, older, more MX issues 767's would have been responsible for potentially worse performance.
Or is a 767 faster if it wanst to be and can make up more time especially with head winds ?

E