The airline with the most cancelled flights in Australia might surprise you

Had a flight cancelled recently? The airline with the most cancelled flights in Australia might surprise you.

Queensland-owned airline Skytrans cancelled the most trips out of any Aussie airline in July 2024, pulling the pin on 7.6 per cent of its services.

Virgin Australia Regional Airlines came in second with 4.5 per cent of flights cancelled and Jetstar was the third-most cancelled carrier with 3.7 per cent of its flights not going ahead.

Three per cent of all flights in Australia were cancelled in July, which was higher than the long-term average of 2.2 per cent, and the route with the most cancellations was Sydney to Melbourne.

Contributing to the data during the month was the Crowdstrike global tech outage which caused delays and cancellations for some Australian flights on July 19, as well as Rex Airlines entering voluntary administration on July 30 and cancelling its flights between capital cities the following day.

The data comes from the Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics at a time when two big carriers are in hot water for flight cancellations.

Jetstar has been hit with a class action over travel vouchers issued to hundreds of thousands of customers for flights cancelled at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The lawsuit filed in the Federal Court in August 2024 claims the airline was legally obliged to refund tickets and is pushing for the money to be returned directly to customers with interest.

The consumer watchdog has ordered Qantas to pay $20 million in compensation to 86,597 customers, who between May 2021 and August 2023 were sold tickets Qantas had already decided to cancel, dubbed 'phantom flights'.

In August, the Australian Government announced a long-awaited aviation whitepaper will hold airlines to account for cancelled or delayed flights, and allow passengers to obtain refunds.

At the paper's centre is the independent aviation industry ombudsman, tasked with providing an external dispute resolution service, ensuring airlines and airports are held accountable for their conduct.

A new charter of customer rights will establish a regime for the fair and appropriate treatment of customers, including actions the airline must take in the event of flight delays and cancellations.

Virgin Australia Regional Airlines had the lowest on-time departures rate with 62.6 per cent of flights leaving on time in July, followed closely by Jetstar with 65 per cent of departures on schedule.

Coming in third was Rex Airlines with 70 per cent of flights leaving on time.