Flight data shows airlines can’t keep blaming the weather

afr.com:

Planes operated by Qantas and its budget subsidiary, Jetstar, accounted for almost two-thirds of the flight cancellations that were not caused by bad weather or air traffic control issues on the busy Sydney-Melbourne route in June, new data from Sydney Airport has revealed.

The data comes amid fresh controversy over whether the incumbent airlines are sitting on precious take-off and landing slots by routinely cancelling flights into the country’s biggest airport.The competition watchdog is suing Qantas for allegedly cancelling one in four services from May to July last year, in part, to keep hold of its slots.

On the 13 days in June with no specific weather or air traffic control issues in Sydney, 127 flights were cancelled by domestic airlines. Peter Rae

Qantas boss Alan Joyce has blamed the airline’s high cancellation rate on factors it cannot control, such as thunderstorms and staffing shortages in air traffic control towers, that reduce the number of flights all airlines can operate in and out of Sydney.

At Qantas’s annual results in late August, Mr Joyce singled out June 2023 as a particularly bad period because of bad weather and air traffic control problems, arguing that arrival rates into Sydney were restricted on 17 of the 30 days in the month.

But data from Sydney Airport measuring cancellations made within about three days of a flight’s departure showed there were still high numbers of cancellations made in June for other reasons.

On the 13 days in June with no specific weather or air traffic control issues in Sydney, 127 flights were still cancelled by domestic airlines on the Sydney-to-Melbourne route, including 65 Qantas flights and 18 Jetstar flights, according to the data.

Mr Joyce, who appeared this week