Qantas and Virgin Australia are on track to record some of their worst on-time performances as an outsourced Qantas baggage handler claimed one in ten pieces of luggage are getting lost or aren’t getting loaded onto domestic flights.

Between Monday and Sunday last week, Qantas cancelled 6.7 per cent of domestic flights and had an on-time performance of 44 per cent, while Virgin cancelled 14.7 per cent of flights and had an on-time performance of 43 per cent.

The Australian reported that the growing delays have been compounded by illness among air staff and air traffic controllers.

Airservices Australia said that 10 per cent of the air traffic control team were absent over the past week, but it did not specify where the shortages were most severe.

The weather is also to blame, as Sydney Airport only had one of its three runways operating on Friday and fog slowed arrivals into Melbourne last week.

Transport minister Catherine King told The Australian there was a “real staffing crisis” in aviation.

“The approach of the previous government and some companies hasn’t helped the sector, with outsourcing of labour and the denial of JobKeeper to some workers setting the scene for a third of the workforce leaving the industry,” King said.

“We’re seeing the consequences of those decisions play out in delays and disruption across the country. Nobody likes seeing flights cancelled or delayed.

“The government will keep working with industry and ­unions to rebuild the aviation workforce, but the truth is that replacing the experience and expertise that has been lost can’t be done overnight.”

Both Virgin and Qantas are set to reduce their scheduled flights to reduce stress caused to passengers by staff shortages.

“Sometimes short-term unforeseen adjustments to the schedule are necessary, but lead to some disruption, and we sincerely apologise to guests impacted by these events,” a Virgin spokeswoman said.

Qantas will reduce its domestic capacity by 15 per cent to September due to high fuel prices and to assist with “resourcing challenges.”

“We appreciate how frustrating flight cancellations and delays are for customers with severe weather in NSW and a spike in COVID cases for operating crew impacting airline schedules over the past week,” a Qantas spokesman said on Monday.

“We had additional crew on standby and used larger aircraft on some flights, which allowed us to better respond to these issues and get 85 per cent of our domestic flights to depart within an hour of schedule.”

As Qantas recorded low on-time performance, a baggage handler who works for the company that the flying kangaroo outsourced its jobs to reported that 10 per cent of luggage on average is either lost or not loaded on a Qantas domestic flight.

Swissport – one of the companies Qantas hired to supply baggage handlers – has had to contract two separate labour hire firms to find workers for shifts.

The anonymous Swissport baggage handler told The Guardian they were concerned those loading and transporting bags for Qantas and JetStar flights were overworked, poorly paid, and unable to handle the increase in baggage as flight demand soared.

Of roughly 100 barrows, or trolleys, seen by the average baggage handler at Sydney Domestic Airport, “these days there are about 10 barrows each day that just don’t make it on.”

The handler said that during peak hours even office managers from Qantas and Swissport would help move luggage alongside handlers, but “there’s just still not enough of us there to get to all the bags.”

A spokesperson from Qantas disputed the anonymous handlers claims, saying the actual number is much lower.

“Claims that one in ten bags have been mishandled are wrong,” the spokesperson told Travel Weekly.

“The rate of mishandled baggage across the Qantas network over the past four weeks is around one per cent and our teams are working hard to get this figure down further.”

Amid severe staff shortages, Swissport has been offering a $50 a day bonus to handlers at Sydney Airport for showing up to their shifts until the end of the year.

Qantas has had a lack of baggage handlers since its 2020 decision to outsource about 1700 jobs, which was found to be unlawful.