Virgin Australia is the most on-time airline in Australia while Jetstar has been rated the worst performer. Picture: Matt Thompson

Following the pattern of the 2015 results, Qantas came in a very close second with 86.4 per cent of its arrivals landing on time and 88 per cent for departures.

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“We understand the importance our guests place on getting to their destination on time and we have many teams across the business, including our flight and cabin crew, network operations team, and ground crew, working hard every day to help deliver this strong result, and we thank them for their dedication to this task,” says John Thomas from Virgin Australia Airlines.

“As part of our ongoing push to improve on-time performance we have placed a heavy emphasis on ensuring our first flights of the day depart on-time which helps us better manage circumstances that arise during the course of the day that are out of our control, such as weather events.”

Virgin Australia is the most punctual airline again. Picture: AAPSource:AAP

While Tigerair Australia came in third behind Virgin and Qantas (at 81.6 per cent and 83.1 per cent for arrivals and departures respectively), the budget carrier laid claim to having the lowest cancellation rate (0.9 per cent) of all major domestic airlines in 2016.

This also means it beat its low-cost rival, Jetstar, which was the airline most likely to run late at 76.2 per cent of arrivals running on time and 73.3 per cent for on-time departures.

A Jetstar spokesperson said: “We operate more than 1800 domestic flights across Australia each week, and the vast majority were on time last year.

“We know how important this is for our customers, and we’re working hard behind the scenes to make sure our flights consistently depart and arrive on time.”

The Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE) defines an arrival or departure as being “on-time” if it’s within 15 minutes of the carrier’s schedule.

A flight is considered cancelled when it’s removed from service within 7 days of scheduled departure.

Only a small margin separated the regional airlines, which were ranked Regional Express at 87.5 per cent, followed by Virgin Australia Regional Airlines at 86.8 per cent and QantasLink at 85.7 per cent.

Jetstar has been ranked last of the major carriers for on-time performance.Source:Supplied

QantasLink had the highest percentage of cancellations (2.5 per cent) during 2016.

For the flight route most likely to run on schedule, however, you’ll want to be flying from Melbourne to Hamilton Island, or Townsville to Cairns with 94.1 per cent of arrivals considered on-time. For departures, Adelaide to Alice Springs topped the chart at 95.2 per cent.

The route with the worst on-time performance in 2016 was the Port Macquarie to Sydney run with just 70.5 per cent of flights landing on time.

Sunshine Coast to Melbourne rated the worst route for on-time departures at 67.8 per cent.

The best airport for punctuality is Mount Isa, scoring a high 93.9 per cent for on-time arrivals, while the worst airport in the country was the Sunshine Coast with just 68.7 per cent of flights leaving on time.

Overall, however, the BITRE report noted that the on-time figures for 2016 were well above the long-term average performance for all routes.

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