LST to MEL flight delays
Launceston (Western Junction) (LST) Melbourne (MEL)
4,950 flights · March 2025 – August 2026 · Australian Government BITRE
71.87%
Arrived on time
Within 15 minutes of schedule
2.63%
Cancelled
Share of scheduled flights
—
When late, late by
Average across delayed arrivals
—
Delay per flight
Averaged over every flight flown
What the record says about this route
Which airline you fly changes the odds here. QantasLink arrived on time 8 points more often than Jetstar over the same period on the same route — same airports, same weather, same air traffic control. A gap that survives all of that is about how the two airlines are run.
Cancellation, not delay, is the risk worth pricing here: 2.63% of scheduled flights never operated. A late flight still gets you there. A cancelled one leaves you rebooking, and on a route with few daily departures that can mean losing a day.
The season swings this route hard. In May it ran 23.1 points more punctual than in July — a difference bigger than the one between the best and worst airlines on most routes. If the date is flexible, it is worth more than the carrier.
Flights from Launceston (Western Junction) to Melbourne run late more often than the average route, though not severely.
Which airline should you fly on this route?
Over March 2025 – August 2026, QantasLink arrived on time most often on LST to MEL. Jetstar was late most often. Flights ran closest to schedule in February and worst in July.
Every airline on LST to MEL
Ranked by how many flights each one operated. A carrier with fewer than 100 flights in the period is listed but not graded.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Avg delay | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| QantasLink | 1,691 | 74.72% | 6.45% | — | D |
| Jetstar | 1,679 | 66.73% | 1.01% | — | D |
| Virgin Australia | 1,580 | 74.43% | 0.25% | — | C |
Month by month
Share of flights that arrived within 15 minutes of schedule, by month flown.
Other routes from Launceston (Western Junction)
Common questions
Are flights from Launceston (Western Junction) to Melbourne usually delayed?
71.87% of flights on the LST to MEL route arrived within 15 minutes of schedule, so roughly 3 in every ten arrived late. That is worse than the average route in this record.
Which airline is most on time from Launceston (Western Junction) to Melbourne?
QantasLink, at 74.72% on time across 1,691 flights. The least punctual on the route was Jetstar at 66.73%.
How often are LST to MEL flights cancelled?
2.63% of scheduled flights did not operate — about 26 in every thousand. That is high enough that cancellation, not delay, is the risk worth planning around.
What is the best month to fly Launceston (Western Junction) to Melbourne?
May, when 81.3% of flights arrived on time. The worst was July at 58.2%.
What these figures do and do not tell you
Everything on this page is counted from the flights that actually operated on LST to MEL during March 2025 – August 2026, as reported by the airlines to the US Bureau of Transportation Statistics. "On time" is the federal definition: arriving at the gate within 15 minutes of the scheduled time.
A route's record is a description of the past, not a forecast. Weather, air traffic control and the aircraft's earlier flights that day drive most delays, and none of them are predictable from a historical rate. What the record does tell you is whether this route runs late more often than others, and which carrier on it has the better history — which is the part you can actually act on when you book.
Cancellations are counted separately from delays because they are a different problem for a traveller: a late flight still gets you there. How the grade is calculated →