Qantas has apologised after the latest figures showed cancellations of Canberra-Sydney flights jumping to a new high.
"Our cancellations on Canberra-Sydney were unacceptably high in August," a spokesperson for the airline said.
The airline has promised to improve its schedule from October by replacing some Dash 8 propeller aircraft with more Boeing 737s. "We believe this will significantly improve the reliability of Sydney-Canberra flights," the spokesperson said.
"We know how disappointing cancellations and delays are for customers and we apologise to anyone impacted.
"We are working hard to improve services on our Canberra to Sydney route," the statement said, adding that the rate of cancellations has come down in September. "We expect this improved performance to continue for the months ahead."
But figures for August (the most recent published by the government) show that 14.8 per cent of the airline's flights between the two airports were cancelled in that month, up from 11 per cent in the previous run of months.
In round figures, one in seven Qantas flights were cancelled between the airports compared with one in eight in previous months.
Canberra Airport chief executive Stephen Byron said the new figures "must surely be a record for the worst ever".
He called Qantas' performance on the route "truly disgraceful. So disrespectful of customers".
He wondered what the new chief executive of Qantas was "going to do to apologise to the thousands of people who bought tickets in good faith".
"Every customer who has had a cancellation this year on this route deserves a free flight. The government must do something," he said.
As an example, the airport said that on Monday, September 25, Qantas put passengers on the 7.40am flight on the one an hour later, in effect cancelling the earlier one.
"Clearly this cancellation is a planned decision - when there are not enough passengers on one flight for Qantas to make a big enough profit to make the service worth running, Qantas cancels," an airport spokesperson said.
The new figures from the federal transport department report that 72 of the 486 QantasLink flights from Canberra to Sydney were canceled in August, and 71 of the 486 flights in the other direction were cancelled.
Mr Byron has voiced his frustration at the Qantas performance in the past, including recently to a Senate inquiry last week, but the jump in cancellations has intensified his anger.
In the past, it's blamed different factors, like difficulties with air traffic control in Sydney and with the weather - to which Mr Byron has said that other airlines didn't seem to have been affected in the same way.
Qantas has previously argued that, because Canberra-Sydney flights are so frequent, bumping one flight only means a short delay.
Its rebuttals, though, came before the accusation (which it has not denied) that it has cancelled thousands of flights nationally while still taking money off customers. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is taking Qantas to court over its allegation that it has sold tickets knowing that it wouldn't fly the passenger on the flight they had paid for.
On cancellations, the allegation against Qantas is that it claims slots (times to take off and land) at Sydney Airport in order to keep competitors out. It then cancels flights in those slots, particularly if the flights are thinly booked.
A spokesman has previously said, when the claim was first voiced, "Qantas completely rejects the notion that it is 'hoarding' slots at Sydney."
On the Canberra-Sydney situation, Mr Byron wrote to the chief executive of Qantas' domestic operations, Andrew David, saying: "Andrew, Qantas's treatment of Canberra passengers flying into Sydney Airport is a national disgrace.
"Enough is enough - the cancellation rate needs to be below 5 per cent, and even that is pretty poor."
On Friday, the new chief executive of Qantas, Vanessa Hudson, said about the airline's reputation in general: "I know that we have let you down in many ways and for that, I am sorry."
"We haven't delivered the way we should have. And we've often been hard to deal with."
In her apology, Ms Hudson vowed to fix issues at the airline and "get back to being the national carrier that all Australians can be proud of".
"We understand we need to earn back your trust not with what we say, but with what we do and how we behave," she said.
It is not clear how high the Canberra-Sydney service is on her to-do list.
