Sydney Airport ranks among world’s worst for flight cancellations

New data from FlightAware has placed Sydney Airport as one of the poorest performing airports in the world when it comes to flight cancellations and delays over the past two months.

The flight tracking and data platform placed Sydney Airport as sixth worst for flight cancellations, with 5.9 per cent of flights cancelled, and ninth-worst for delays, with 34.2 per cent of flights affected.

Long airport queues and flight cancellations have plagued Sydney Airport over the past couple of months, with both the Easter and July school holidays impacting congestion at the airport.

Other airports that ranked poorly in terms of flight cancellations included Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport in China (7.9 per cent cancelled), Newark Liberty International Airport in the United States (7.4 per cent cancelled), and LaGuardia Airport in the US (7 per cent cancelled).

For delays, the worst three were Toronto Pearson International Airport in Canada (52.5 per cent delayed), Frankfurt Airport in Germany (45.4 per cent delayed), and Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport in France (43.2 per cent delayed).

Sydney Airport did not provide an official response when asked to comment by Travel Weekly.

For June 2022, all routes operated by Australian airlines (Jetstar, Qantas, QantasLink, Rex Airlines, Virgin Australia and Virgin Australia Regional Airlines) averaged 63 per cent for on-time arrivals and 61.9 per cent for on-time departures.

In comparison, for the same period last year, the rate was 84 per cent for both and the cancellation rate was 5.8 per cent.

“These are the worst On-Time Performance figures recorded since recording commenced in November 2003,” the Australian Transport Department wrote on the latest monthly update.

Jetstar ranked the lowest in terms of on-time departures (55 per cent), followed by Qantas.

A Qantas Group spokesperson said “these flight delays and cancellations are not the kind of performance that we were delivering pre-COVID and we know they are not at the level that our customers expect.”

A rise in COVID cases and other illnesses among workers, alongside the tight labour market, led to many flight disruptions, the spokesperson said.

“Everyone at Qantas and Jetstar is focused on turning this performance around,” the spokesperson said.

“Flight cancellations this month are lower than they were in June, call centre wait times are now better than they were pre-COVID and our mishandled bag rates are close to what they were before the pandemic.”