Adelaide to Sydney

ADL → SYD · 1,167 km · 564 flights a month · Sydney to Adelaide

Punctuality: 12 months to Aug 2026

Flights between Adelaide and Sydney carried 162,765 passengers in both directions in Jul 2026, ranking 8th of the 61 routes with reported traffic that month. Over the 12 months to Aug 2026, 2.3% of flights from Adelaide to Sydney were cancelled, above the national average of 2.0%. In the published records for Sep 2025–Aug 2026, Jetstar recorded 3.9% cancellations across 1,649 scheduled flights, compared with Qantas's 1.7% across 2,838 scheduled flights in this direction. These are observed samples, not a forecast. Direction matters here: Sydney→Adelaide departs on time 80.3% of the time against 76.9% coming back. The route is busiest in October and quietest in February.

The route

1,167 km great-circle · 1h 55m typical

Punctuality by airline

12 months to Aug 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.

Does the direction matter?

On this route it does. Delays build up through the day, so the aircraft flying the return leg is often already behind schedule. Cancellations, by contrast, usually take out both legs — which is why those figures barely differ.

A 3.3 point gap in on-time departures · 12 months to Aug 2026

Cancellations over time

Punctuality data begins Nov 2003 and runs to Aug 2026. Gaps are months with no reported services, not missing data.

Passengers, 1984 to 2026

Traffic: to Jul 2026 · Marks show industry events

Passenger figures count both directions together — Adelaide to Sydney and back. The published statistics do not separate them. Cancellations, punctuality and flight numbers above are for Adelaide to Sydney 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 Sydney is 1h 55m gate to gate, over 1,167 km. The return leg is scheduled at 2h 10m — 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

23 flight numbers currently scheduled from Adelaide to Sydney. These are the numbers you book under — some are operated by a regional partner such as QantasLink or Alliance.

Typical flight time 1h 55m.

Scheduled every day this week — 142 departures in all.

Qantas · 10 · Boeing 737-800, Boeing 737-800 (winglets), Embraer 190

QF730 · QF732 · QF736 · QF738 · QF740 · QF742 · QF744 · QF746 · QF748 · QF1992

Virgin Australia · 8 · Boeing 737-800, Boeing 737-800 (winglets), Boeing 737 MAX 8, Boeing 737-700

VA401 · VA413 · VA417 · VA419 · VA425 · VA429 · VA441 · VA443

Jetstar · 5 · Airbus A320, Airbus A320 (Sharklets), Airbus A321

JQ759 · JQ761 · JQ763 · JQ765 · JQ767

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

Traffic: to Jul 2026

Other routes through Adelaide and Sydney

From Adelaide

• Adelaide ↔ Melbourne

From Sydney

• Melbourne ↔ Sydney
• Brisbane ↔ Sydney
• Gold Coast ↔ Sydney
• Perth ↔ Sydney
• Cairns ↔ Sydney

Airport data

• Adelaide Airport
• Sydney Airport