Cancelled
1.8%
0.2 pts better than average
Mackay to Brisbane
MKY → BNE · 797 km · 335 flights a month · Brisbane to Mackay
On time (departures)
85.5%
national 78.2%
Flight time
1h 30m
15m shorter than the return
Latest month
0.6%
Jul 2026 cancelled
Airlines
4
on this direction
Punctuality: 12 months to Jul 2026
Flights between Mackay and Brisbane carried 66,217 passengers in both directions in Jun 2026, ranking 18th of the 62 routes with reported traffic that month. Over the 12 months to Jul 2026, 1.8% of flights from Mackay to Brisbane were cancelled, close to the national average of 2.1%. Which airline you fly matters: Jetstar cancelled 3.1% of its flights in this direction, 4.1× the rate of Virgin Australia at 0.8%. Direction matters here: Mackay→Brisbane departs on time 85.5% of the time against 81.1% coming back. The route is busiest in October and quietest in February.
The route
797 km great-circle · 1h 30m 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 | 1,811 | 2.7% | 90.3% |
| Virgin Australia | Virgin Australia Group | 1,591 | 0.8% | 84.3% |
| Jetstar | 324 | 3.1% | 60.5% | |
| Qantas | Qantas Group | 293 | 1.0% | 90.3% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mackay → Brisbane | 85.5% | 1.8% | 4,019 |
| Brisbane → Mackay | 81.1% | 1.5% | 3,971 |
A 4.5 point gap in on-time departures · 12 months to Jul 2026
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 — Mackay to Brisbane and back. The published statistics do not separate them. Cancellations, punctuality and flight numbers above are for Mackay to Brisbane 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 Mackay to Brisbane is 1h 30m gate to gate, over 797 km. The return leg is scheduled at 1h 45m — 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
20 flight numbers currently scheduled from Mackay to Brisbane. 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 — 97 departures in all.
Qantas · 13 · Embraer 190, Airbus A220-300, Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 / DHC-8-400, Airbus A320-200
QF985 · QF1541 · QF1543 · QF1545 · QF1821 · QF1823 · QF1825 · QF1827 · QF1829 · QF1831 · QF1833 · QF2513 · QF5889
Virgin Australia · 6 · Boeing 737-800, Boeing 737-800 (winglets), Boeing 737-700, Boeing 737-700 (winglets)
VA600 · VA602 · VA604 · VA608 · VA610 · VA618
Jetstar · 1 · Airbus A320, Airbus A320-200
JQ889
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 | 86,698 · Oct 2011 |
| Pandemic low | 5,741 · May 2020 |
| Traffic vs 2019 average | 99.8% |
| Load factor, Jun 2026 | 77.1% |
| Aircraft trips, Jun 2026 | 688 |
| Great-circle distance | 797 km |
Traffic: to Jun 2026