Record flight disruptions at Australian airports as travel rebuilds

Travellers are seeing teething problems as Australia records fewer on-time flights than during the height of the pandemic. Photo / Getty Images, Bloomberg

Flight schedules across the Ditch are more disrupted than at the peak of the Pandemic as airlines, airports and travel companies struggle with a chronic labour shortage.

Last month the number of on-time services dropped to their lowest point since records began.

For April 2022, just over 60 per cent of flights were on time according to Bitre - the Australian Bureau of Infrastructure, Travel and Regional Economics.

The Bureau which first began recording airlines' domestic on time performance in 2003 has shown that the biggest disruption to the smooth running of aviation has not been pandemic travel restrictions but the challenges of rebuilding capacity.

During the period of March 2020 to March 2022 and the worst of Australia's Covid-19 related restrictions, on-time performance actually improved.

Although overall cancellations spiked, particularly around waves in March 2020 and the emergence of the Delta variant in June 2021, overall performance was at a high. On-time arrivals soared to 92-85 per cent.

However, with the rapid return of to travel there have been some snags. High traffic over Easter and Anzac holidays during the month of April caused some backlog at Australian airports.

Lack of luggage handlers and the inability to get ground handling agents to meet inbound aircraft led to lengthy waits on the tarmac.

"It's a combination of a number of factors alright but the biggest issue by far is just the labour shortages," Sydney Airport CEO Geoff Culbert told Sky News.

"We've been rebuilding the business from the ground up, but given the tight labour market, we just can't get people back into the business quickly enough."

Australia's domestic travel has had its worst on-time performance on record. Data / BITRE, Supplied

Knock on across the Tasman

The definition of on-time is an arrival within 15 minutes of the scheduled arrival or departure time. This might be a minor inconvenience to passengers but is used as an indicator for the health of networks and airports.

New Zealand airports have seen a slight drop in on-time performance, it has not been as dramatic as that seen in Australia. Most delays are in departing aircraft, which are mostly recovered in the air.

A look at New Zealand three largest airports - Auckland Christchurch and Wellington via Flight Radar 24 - show that there 74.4 per cent of departures are on time, versus 88 per cent of arrivals.

In April Circum aviation performance ranked Air New Zealand as the fourth most reliable in the Asia Pacific region, with 92.38 per cent of services on time from 12000 flights.

Australian carriers, however, continue to suffer from disruption with Virgin Australia recording 65.57 per cent of services on-time and Qantas Network just 60.12 per cent on-time from 20000 flights.

Jetstar which self-reports on-time performance for Domestic services in New Zealand says it is operating at 84.1 per cent monthly average for April, although this has dropped twelve points since the beginning of the year.