Passengers
542,906
Auckland to Melbourne, 12 months to Jun 2026
Auckland to Melbourne
New Zealand · 498 months of data from Jan 1985 · Melbourne to Auckland
Both directions
1,091,173
including Melbourne to Auckland
Flight time
4h 5m
30m longer than the return
Load factor
83%
seats filled on this leg
Traffic: 12 months to Jun 2026
542,906 passengers flew Auckland to Melbourne in the 12 months to Jun 2026, out of 1,091,173 on the route in both directions. Flights run about 83% full, much the same in both directions. This route has been reported for 42 years.
Passenger history milestones
Recorded milestones use this city-pair passenger series, with both directions combined. A first positive record is not a service-launch date; complete calendar years require all twelve observed, non-null months.
First positive passenger record
Jan 1985
first recorded month with passengers > 0
Peak complete year
2018
1,254,977 passengers
Latest complete year
2025
1,089,331 passengers
The route
Distances are true from Melbourne; the ring marks the distance to Auckland.
How long is the flight?
Scheduled flight time from Auckland to Melbourne is 4h 5m gate to gate, over 2,644 km. Coming back takes 3h 35m — a difference of 30m, so this direction is the slower one.
Scheduled block time — gate to gate, not time in the air — taken from the current timetable for this leg. Long-haul flights are often timetabled differently in each direction because of winds aloft, so the return is not always the same length. Check your own booking for the flight you are taking.
Flight numbers on this route
10 flight numbers currently scheduled from Auckland to Melbourne. These are the numbers you book under.
Scheduled every day this week — 55 departures in all.
Air New Zealand · 4 · Boeing 787-9, Airbus A320, Boeing 777, Boeing 777-300
NZ121 · NZ125 · NZ127 · NZ129
Qantas · 4 · Boeing 737-800
QF152 · QF154 · QF156 · QF158
Jetstar · 2 · Airbus A320
JQ212 · JQ216
Current timetable as at 2026-09-06
Timetables change, and these carry no punctuality figures of their own — no on-time data is published for international flights at all. The passenger and load factor figures above cover the route, not any single flight number.
Passengers, 1985 to 2026
To Jun 2026 · Marks show industry events
How full were the flights?
Inbound load factor, read as a floor rather than an exact figure. Some flights on this pair also carried passengers to and from other cities, and their seats cannot be split between those journeys. Dividing by every seat on every aircraft that touched the route gives the lowest the true figure can be, so actual occupancy is at or above the line. Seat data begins in 2009, so this series is shorter than the passenger chart above.
Gaps indicate missing observations, not zero values.
Gaps indicate missing observations, not zero values.
Gaps indicate missing observations, not zero values.
Load factor: seats data from 2009
When is this route busiest?
Average passengers by calendar month over the last ten years, relative to the annual average.
Freight
Tonnes of air freight carried on this route — a dimension the domestic data does not have at all.
To Jun 2026
The route in numbers
| Busiest month on record | 129,718 · Dec 2019 |
| Data coverage | Jan 1985 – Jun 2026 (498 months) |
| Freight, 12 months to Jun 2026 | 27,825 tonnes |
| Destination region | New Zealand |
No punctuality data is published for international services, so there are no cancellation or on-time figures on this page. That series covers domestic routes only.