Cancelled
1.1%
0.9 pts better than average
Gold Coast to Sydney
OOL → SYD · 680 km · 683 flights a month · Sydney to Gold Coast
On time (departures)
75.8%
national 78.8%
Flight time
1h 30m
10m longer than the return
Latest month
0.2%
Aug 2026 cancelled
Airlines
3
on this direction
Punctuality: 12 months to Aug 2026
Flights between Gold Coast and Sydney carried 226,908 passengers in both directions in Jul 2026, ranking 4th of the 61 routes with reported traffic that month. Over the 12 months to Aug 2026, 1.1% of flights from Gold Coast to Sydney were cancelled, well below the national average of 2.0%. In the published records for Sep 2025–Aug 2026, Jetstar recorded 2.3% cancellations across 2,974 scheduled flights, compared with Qantas's 0.0% across 1,587 scheduled flights in this direction. These are observed samples, not a forecast. Direction matters here: Sydney→Gold Coast departs on time 78.9% of the time against 75.8% coming back. The route is busiest in January and quietest in February.
The route
680 km great-circle · 1h 30m 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.
| Airline | Group | Flights | Cancelled | On time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Virgin Australia | Virgin Australia Group | 3,632 | 0.6% | 71.3% |
| Jetstar | 2,974 | 2.3% | 78.8% | |
| Qantas | Qantas Group | 1,587 | 0.0% | 80.5% |
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.
| Direction | On time | Cancelled | Flights |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sydney → Gold Coast | 78.9% | 0.9% | 8,204 |
| Gold Coast → Sydney | 75.8% | 1.1% | 8,193 |
A 3.1 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 — Gold Coast to Sydney and back. The published statistics do not separate them. Cancellations, punctuality and flight numbers above are for Gold Coast 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 Gold Coast to Sydney is 1h 30m gate to gate, over 680 km. The return leg is scheduled at 1h 20m — the two directions differ by 10m, so this way round is the slower 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
36 flight numbers currently scheduled from Gold Coast 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 30m.
Scheduled every day this week — 166 departures in all.
Qantas · 15 · Airbus A320, Boeing 737-800, Airbus A320 (Sharklets), Airbus A320 NEO
QF587 · QF589 · QF591 · QF593 · QF595 · QF597 · QF5401 · QF5403 · QF5405 · QF5407 · QF5409 · QF5411 · QF5415 · QF5419 · QF5421
Virgin Australia · 11 · Boeing 737-800, Boeing 737, Boeing 737 MAX 8, Boeing 737-700
VA500 · VA504 · VA508 · VA512 · VA516 · VA518 · VA520 · VA526 · VA530 · VA534 · VA542
Jetstar · 10 · Airbus A320, Airbus A320 (Sharklets), Airbus A320 NEO
JQ401 · JQ403 · JQ405 · JQ407 · JQ409 · JQ411 · JQ413 · JQ415 · JQ419 · JQ421
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 | 275,559 · Jan 2020 |
| Pandemic low | 1,518 · Apr 2020 |
| Traffic vs 2019 average | 93.4% |
| Load factor, Jul 2026 | 85.0% |
| Aircraft trips, Jul 2026 | 1,497 |
| Great-circle distance | 680 km |
Traffic: to Jul 2026