Check the couple weeks before! It's my regular flight and I was checking it and thinking just as well I had not booked it!
You said you don't think VA have recovered in January, based off cancellations the month before? Ok.
@youfoundblake isn't wrong in saying there has been a noticeable improvement in on-time performance for January. From my own experience, all of my VA flights have been on time in January. One was even in the air 5 minutes before the scheduled departure time.
Then looking at actual data, take today as an example. At the time of posting, there has been 55 scheduled departures from Melbourne so far today. 2 were cancelled, and 4 have departed late. That works out at around 89% for on time departures for flights from MEL up to 3pm.
Looking at yesterday too, there were 94 scheduled departures from Melbourne. 4 were cancelled and 13 departed late. That's about 82% on time departure rate. I didn't have time to check the other major ports in detail, but at a quick glance, it's a similar story for Brisbane and Sydney.
I completely agree that VAs OTP and service recovery has been absolutely shocking recently. The December figures make that abundantly clear, but it's not a ludicrous suggestion that there's been an improvement this month.
Their biggest challenge will be to keep this consistent going forward. I have my doubts, but hopefully we'll be surprised.