Cancelled
1.5%
0.6 pts better than average
Adelaide to Canberra
ADL → CBR · 972 km · 115 flights a month · Canberra to Adelaide
On time (departures)
87.1%
national 78.2%
Flight time
1h 40m
15m shorter than the return
Latest month
1.6%
Jul 2026 cancelled
Airlines
2
on this direction
Punctuality: 12 months to Jul 2026
Flights between Adelaide and Canberra carried 15,089 passengers in both directions in Jun 2026, ranking 47th of the 62 routes with reported traffic that month. Over the 12 months to Jul 2026, 1.5% of flights from Adelaide to Canberra were cancelled, below the national average of 2.1%. The route is busiest in November and quietest in January.
The route
972 km great-circle · 1h 40m typical
Punctuality by airline
12 months to Jul 2026. Qantas and QantasLink are reported separately in the source data and are shown that way here — on many routes the difference between them is large.
| Airline | Group | Flights | Cancelled | On time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| QantasLink | Qantas Group | 1,177 | 1.7% | 88.5% |
| Virgin Australia | Virgin Australia Group | 201 | 0.5% | 79.0% |
Cancellations over time
Punctuality data begins Nov 2003 and runs to Jul 2026. Gaps are months with no reported services, not missing data.
Passengers, 1984 to 2026
Traffic: to Jun 2026 · Marks show industry events
Passenger figures count both directions together — Adelaide to Canberra and back. The published statistics do not separate them. Cancellations, punctuality and flight numbers above are for Adelaide to Canberra only.
When is this route busiest?
Average passengers by calendar month, relative to the annual average. 2020 and 2021 are excluded — those years were a structural break, not a season, and leaving them in shifts the apparent peak month on most routes. Higher months are typically the more expensive ones to fly.
Both directions combined, as published.
How long is the flight?
Scheduled flight time from Adelaide to Canberra is 1h 40m gate to gate, over 972 km. The return leg is scheduled at 1h 55m — the two directions differ by 15m, so this way round is the quicker one.
This is scheduled block time — from leaving the gate to reaching it at the other end — not time in the air, and not a substitute for checking your own booking. It is a median across the flights currently timetabled on this leg.
Flight numbers on this route
5 flight numbers currently scheduled from Adelaide to Canberra. These are the numbers you book under — some are operated by a regional partner such as QantasLink or Alliance.
Typical flight time 1h 40m.
Scheduled every day this week — 29 departures in all.
Qantas · 4 · Embraer 190, Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 / DHC-8-400
QF1794 · QF1796 · QF1798 · QF2550
Virgin Australia · 1 · Boeing 737-800, Boeing 737-800 (winglets)
VA580
Current timetable as at 2026-09-06
Timetables change; these are not a booking source and carry no punctuality figures of their own. The cancellation and on-time rates above are for the route as a whole, not for any single flight number — per-flight performance is not collected.
The route in numbers
| Busiest month on record | 20,604 · Sep 2009 |
| Pandemic low | 8,818 · Dec 2021 |
| Traffic vs 2019 average | 94.4% |
| Load factor, Jun 2026 | 65.3% |
| Aircraft trips, Jun 2026 | 223 |
| Great-circle distance | 972 km |
Traffic: to Jun 2026