If you've ever flown out of Melbourne Airport, you can likely relate to anxiously hoping you won't be hit with the trifecta of bad traffic en route to the airport, departure delays and flight cancellations. It's not great, but according to data from the OAG Flight Database, the situation is worse than you may have thought: Melbourne Airport has been crowned Australia's worst airport for delays and cancellations.
In the month of June, only 45.6 per cent of departing flights from Melbourne Airport took off on time, and 8.1 per cent were cancelled. Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport doesn't trail far behind, with 54.5 per cent of flights departing on time and 7.1 per cent being cancelled. On the other end of the spectrum, Brisbane Airport is Australia's most on-time airport, with 63.4 per cent of flights departing on time and a cancellation rate of less than five per cent.
To put those figures into perspective, Melbourne Airport came in 631st place globally — that's only 11 spots ahead of Heathrow Airport, which has descended into utter chaos. The OAG's data does show that there's an overall uptick in global airport mayhem, likely spurred by poor weather, staff shortages and a surge in desire for post-Covid travel. In Australia, June has been a particularly bad month, with twice as many flights being cancelled compared to the long-term average.
With this in mind, if you're planning on doing any travelling any time soon, consider booking your flight with the airlines that have clocked the best on-time arrivals. In June, Virgin Australia came in on top with a 60.4 per cent rate of on-time arrivals and a cancellation rate of 5.8 per cent. Regional airline Rex Airlines recorded a whopping 80 per cent on-time arrival rate and a meagre 0.7 per cent cancellation rate. Learn more here.