Flight time
55m
Cairns to Townsville, scheduled
Cairns to Townsville
CNS → TSV · 284 km · Townsville to Cairns
Distance
284 km
great-circle
Punctuality for this route is no longer reported, though historical figures remain below. The route is busiest in July and quietest in January.
The route
284 km great-circle · 55m typical
Cancellations over time
Punctuality data begins Nov 2003 and runs to Jan 2025. Gaps are months with no reported services, not missing data.
Punctuality is no longer reported for this route. The historical series above ends Jan 2025.
Passengers, 1994 to 2026
Not enough data to chart.
Traffic: to Jun 2026 · Marks show industry events
Passenger figures count both directions together — Cairns to Townsville and back. The published statistics do not separate them. Cancellations, punctuality and flight numbers above are for Cairns to Townsville 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 Cairns to Townsville is 55m gate to gate, over 284 km. The return leg is scheduled at much the same, 1h.
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
12 flight numbers currently scheduled from Cairns to Townsville. These are the numbers you book under — some are operated by a regional partner such as QantasLink or Alliance.
The route still operates, but it is no longer large enough to appear in the published passenger statistics — those end Oct 2021. The timetable below is current.
Typical flight time 55m.
Scheduled every day this week — 36 departures in all.
Qantas · 7 · Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 / DHC-8-400, De Havilland Canada DHC-8-400 Dash 8Q
QF2345 · QF2347 · QF2349 · QF2351 · QF2355 · QF2357 · QF2359
Rex · 3 · Saab 340, Saab 340B
ZL5417 · ZL5423 · ZL5441
Aeromexico · 1 · Bombardier Challenger 600
AM604
Thai AirAsia · 1 · Beechcraft 350 Super King Air
FD480
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 | 18,546 · Mar 2011 |
| Pandemic low | 1,303 · Apr 2020 |
| Great-circle distance | 284 km |
Traffic: to Jun 2026