It’s been a terrible, no good, very bad year for Australian airlines. Earlier this year, City Journal covered the story of Eve Timmins, a Brisbane-based circus performer left out of pocket when her Jetstar flight was cancelled at the last minute.
But just how bad have the issues been, and why are problems continuing to plague the travel industry?
Before the pandemic, years of strong growth saw industry activity peak at nearly 61 million domestic passenger flights operated in the 2018-19 financial year.
But the onset of the Covid pandemic saw two thirds of flights vanish into thin air, with airlines operating just 20 million flights during the 2020-21 financial year.
That was a shock for Australia’s broader travel industry, which accounted for 600 thousand jobs in March 2020. Three months into the pandemic, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported 100 thousand jobs were gone.
Cassandra Tayler saw her job at a leading travel agency become “collateral damage” in 2020. At the time, she’d been a travel agent for 14 years.
“I’d always been interested in other countries,” says Tayler, who took her family on a three-month round-the-world trip before entering the industry.
She spent 18 months researching and booking countless hotels and connecting flights. Then, when the time came for the trip, “everything just ran perfectly”.
Tayler says her friends were impressed by the level of coordination, and suggested she become a travel agent. She got her first placement while studying.
“For the people that come up in the travel industry – if you’re really into it – it’s a real passionate industry,” says Tayler. “It was such a colourful industry to be in.”
That passion has followed Tayler to her current work. After starting in an admin role at a construction company, Tayler now also coordinates the firm’s travel through her own agency, Tayler Made Travel.
But as she settled in at the new company, the travel industry continued cutting back. Airlines cancelled 7,843 flights in March 2020, a record-high at the time.
Another 2,283 flights failed to take off the next month. But by May, airlines cancelled just 28 flights, ending a rapid industry downsizing and heralding a new normal.
When Eve Timmins received that fateful late-night text from Jetstar, she had to Google what to do next. The text didn’t include how to contact the airline, or what Timmins’ recourse could be.
Google gave her the number to Jetstar’s support hotline, which Timmins rang right away. Unfortunately, every other passenger on her flight appeared to have the same idea.
Over the hour Timmins spent on hold before giving up, she “stress ate” an entire block of cheese. The exercise established she would not make it to Melbourne.
The next available flight Jetstar’s website offered Timmins took off two days later, meaning she’d miss her connecting V/Line train and several days of training.
That wasn’t an option. Timmins ended up booking a direct flight to Albury with Jetstar’s parent company Qantas – at a steep premium for booking last minute.
The new flight cost $560, a far cry from the $130 deal Timmins scored originally. Jetstar only compensated the original ticket, leaving Timmins $472 out of pocket when including the missed V/Line train.
That’s par for the course with cancelled flights. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission says airlines “do not guarantee flight times, and flight times do not form part of their contract of carriage with you”.
But Cassandra Tayler has two tips for easing the pain. Taking out insurance can help travellers claw more money back, and engaging a travel agent can make resolving the situation their job instead of yours.
It’s clear the title of Australia’s most unreliable airline is one hard fought for, with Qantas, Virgin and Jetstar all tussling for the top spot over the last decade.
| Airline | Pre-Covid | Post-Covid | Ranking |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jetstar | 1.76% | 10.55% | Worst |
| Virgin | 1.73% | 8.79% | 3rd |
| Qantas | 1.88% | 8.08% | 2nd |
| Rex | 0.67% | 3.61% | Best |
The data confirms Timmins’ experience of Jetstar being Australia’s most unreliable airline. But what it doesn’t confirm is the widely-held perception of Qantas going down the toilet.
In fact, it turns out Qantas was Australia’s most unreliable airline… but only before the pandemic. Since then, while its reliability has taken a hit, it’s still out ahead of main competitor Virgin.
Perhaps the unique scrutiny Qantas attracts is a consequence of its own marketing. Despite being privatised over 25 years ago, the airline still calls itself ‘Australia’s national carrier.’
As Andrew Curran writes for Simple Flying: “Australian’s [sic] have willingly adopted it into their national consciousness for a century. And Qantas has astutely utilised this.”
But overall, Australia’s biggest three airlines have a similar 8 to 11 per cent cancellation rate, signalling the problems afflicting Australian aviation aren’t unique to one particular carrier.
Cassandra Tayler attributes many of the industry’s issues to growing pains after its dramatic downsizing. The number of travel industry jobs still hasn’t returned to pre-Covid levels.
“A lot of it has been staffing. They don’t have the baggage handlers; they don’t have the check-in staff,” she says. “People looked for another job, got into a different industry and haven’t come back.”
Tayler also says assets are an issue. Rental car companies which sold off fleets have now been hit by a global computer chip shortage, and airlines themselves have had to prepare their planes.
“It’s not a matter of just, you know, putting a plane in the sky and off we go again,” she explains. “It takes a while to prepare a plane that’s been in the desert for two years to be up in the sky again.”
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