The best and worst airlines for flight cancellations

Passengers flying with Virgin Australia and Dutch carrier KLM are suffering some of the biggest disruptions to travel as the understaffed aviation industry struggles to cope with a resurgence in demand, schedules show. Zeroing in on a group of 19 airlines around the world -- the same one Qantas Airways Ltd. uses to assess its performance against peers -- Virgin Australia canceled the biggest proportion of flights in the three months through July 26, according to data from analytics company Cirium. It axed close to 2,200 flights, or 5.9% of its schedule, compared with 1.4% in the same period in 2019. Air New Zealand, Qantas and Deutsche Lufthansa , Europe’s biggest airline, rounded out the five that canceled flights most often in the period. Singapore Airlines had the best record, scrapping just 0.1% of planned services. A supercharged rebound in bookings as Covid-19 travel restrictions ease has overwhelmed even the largest and most established names in aviation. After laying off tens of thousands of pilots, flight crew, baggage handlers and security staff during the pandemic, the industry can’t hire fast enough to keep up. Analysts say it may be months before normal levels of service return.<br/>