Qantas Is Now the World’s Most On-Time Airline—Here’s How It Did It

Qantas Airways (QF) has been named the world’s most punctual major airline for June 2026. Aviation data firm OAG confirmed the result, giving the Australian flag carrier an on-time performance (OTP) score of 87.16%, based on 22,617 flights that month. The ranking places Qantas ahead of Colombia’s Avianca (87.00%) and India’s IndiGo (86.64%) in the “major airline” category, which covers carriers operating more than 20,000 flights a month.

The result was announced on 9 July 2026, and it caps a run of strong performances rather than a single lucky month. Qantas finished second globally in April 2026 and third in May, meaning it has now placed in OAG’s global top three for five of the past six months. Three years ago, the same airline ranked 106th in the world for punctuality, a gap that frames just how far its operations have come.

What Qantas’s 87.16% On-Time Score Actually Measures

OAG’s monthly rankings track the share of flights that depart or arrive within 15 minutes of their published schedule. The “major airline” category applies to carriers flying more than 20,000 sectors a month, which puts Qantas alongside global giants such as Delta Air Lines and American Airlines rather than smaller regional operators.

Qantas’s 1.59% cancellation rate for June sat mid-table among the top carriers, better than SAS Scandinavian Airlines (2.04%) and Azul Airlines (2.54%), though behind IndiGo’s 0.20%. Within Australia, a Qantas spokesperson said almost 85% of domestic flights departed on time in June, the airline’s best domestic result since 2017.

The same spokesperson added that the international network also performed strongly, with 74% of flights departing on time and more than 87% arriving within 30 minutes of schedule. That domestic and international split matters, since Qantas operates both dense short-haul routes and some of the longest non-stop flights in the world.

Here are the rankings of the most punctual airlines in full:

Rank	Airline	Region	On-Time Performance (OTP)	Cancellation Rate	Flights
1	Qantas Airways	Southwest Pacific	87.16%	1.59%	22,617
2	Avianca	Latin America: Upper South America	87.00%	0.97%	22,910
3	IndiGo	Asia: South Asia	86.64%	0.20%	64,599
4	SAS Scandinavian Airlines	Europe: Western Europe	83.65%	2.04%	22,943
5	Pegasus Airlines	Europe: Eastern/Central Europe	83.10%	0.26%	20,121
6	Azul Airlines	Latin America: Lower South America	81.92%	2.54%	22,646
7	LATAM Airlines Group	Latin America: Lower South America	81.73%	1.34%	48,475
8	Delta Air Lines	North America	81.32%	1.43%	158,530
9	China Southern Airlines	Asia: North East Asia	80.89%	0.31%	62,991
10	Alaska Airlines	North America	80.38%	0.76%	47,548
11	Japan Airlines	Asia: North East Asia	79.85%	3.58%	25,289
12	Hainan Airlines	Asia: North East Asia	78.25%	2.87%	20,747
13	JetBlue Airways	North America	77.66%	1.27%	28,061
14	All Nippon Airways	Asia: North East Asia	77.11%	3.29%	24,928
15	KLM Royal Dutch Airlines	Europe: Western Europe	75.64%	2.88%	22,628
16	China Eastern Airlines	Asia: North East Asia	75.16%	3.51%	64,684
17	United Airlines	North America	75.00%	1.17%	156,494
18	Deutsche Lufthansa AG	Europe: Western Europe	74.49%	1.45%	31,422
19	American Airlines	North America	72.21%	3.10%	202,446
20	Air France	Europe: Western Europe	71.95%	1.04%	23,757
21	Frontier Airlines	North America	70.97%	1.50%	20,194
22	British Airways	Europe: Western Europe	70.07%	2.01%	26,395
23	Ryanair	Europe: Western Europe	69.74%	0.12%	112,420
24	Air Canada	North America	69.26%	4.40%	34,067
25	easyJet	Europe: Western Europe	65.71%	1.33%	56,054
26	Southwest Airlines	North America	64.94%	0.53%	124,517

How Qantas Climbed from 106th to No. 1 in Three Years

Qantas’s post-pandemic years were difficult well beyond punctuality. Staff shortages, grounded aircraft, congested airports and a demand surge nobody had planned for combined to create widespread delays and cancellations, badly denting the airline’s reputation with travellers.

Since becoming chief executive in 2023, Vanessa Hudson has made operational reliability the clearest priority of her tenure. Her approach has been described as methodical rather than dramatic, built on steady process changes instead of a single fix.

The recovery shows up in the data. Qantas moved from a 106th-place global ranking three years ago to first place in June 2026, a turnaround that industry observers say reflects sustained investment across scheduling, staffing and fleet management rather than a short-term push.

The Operational Playbook Qantas Used to Cut Delays

Several concrete changes underpin Qantas’s improved punctuality. According to reporting on the airline’s operations, the carrier has combined technology, ground-process changes and fleet renewal to reduce the delays that used to cascade across its schedule.

Key measures include:

• Using artificial intelligence tools to manage daily flight operations and anticipate disruptions before they cascade.
• Overhauling ground turnaround procedures at major airports to speed up aircraft readiness between flights.
• Tightening crew and aircraft allocation so replacement crews and spare aircraft are available closer to where they are needed.
• Boarding some aircraft through two doors at once, cutting the time spent at the gate.
• Continuing a AU$15 billion fleet renewal program, replacing older aircraft with new Airbus A220s and A321XLRs.

The fleet renewal piece is already visible on Qantas’s network. The airline’s Airbus A321XLRs, which entered domestic service between Sydney, Melbourne and Perth in late 2025, run on newer Pratt & Whitney engines and have already begun replacing Qantas’s ageing Boeing 737 fleet, which averages more than 17 years old. Newer aircraft need fewer unscheduled repairs, which supports tighter, more reliable schedules.

How Qantas’s Punctuality Measures Compare with Rival Airlines

Qantas is not alone in treating turnaround speed as a competitive edge. Second-placed Avianca and third-placed IndiGo, both of which beat Qantas on cancellations in June, have taken different routes to strong punctuality.

IndiGo, which came third in the June rankings, has built its reputation on a single-aircraft-family fleet of Airbus A320s and A321s. That standardisation simplifies crew training and maintenance, and the airline uses a similar two-door boarding technique to Qantas, cutting deboarding time through an additional front door on select aircraft. IndiGo has also introduced a third ramp system at remote aircraft stands, shaving three to five minutes off turnaround at some of its busiest airports.

Further down the June table, the contrast becomes clearer. American Airlines, Air Canada and easyJet, ranked 19th, 24th and 25th respectively, all recorded on-time rates below 73%, alongside cancellation rates as high as 4.40% for Air Canada. The gap between the top and bottom of the table underscores how much operational discipline, rather than network size alone, separates the most and least punctual major carriers.

Domestic Rivals Also Delivered Strong Results in June

Qantas was not the only Australasian airline to post solid punctuality numbers in June. In the “large airline” category, covering carriers with 10,000 to 20,000 monthly flights, Air New Zealand placed eighth globally with an OTP of 84.42%, ahead of Virgin Australia in 18th (80.12%) and Qantas’s budget offshoot Jetstar in 24th (75.86%), KarryOn reported.

That gap between Qantas and Jetstar is worth noting. Despite sitting under the same parent company, Jetstar’s punctuality recovery has lagged behind the mainline brand, even though Jetstar posted the lowest cancellation rate of Australasia’s major carriers at just 0.77%.

In the broader “all airlines” category, which includes smaller operators flying more than 1,500 flights a month, Indonesia’s Garuda Indonesia topped the table with a 97.13% OTP, ahead of Japan’s Fuji Dream Airlines (93.29%) and South Africa’s FlySafair (93.18%).