Passengers
51,540
Melbourne to Beijing, 12 months to May 2026
Melbourne to Beijing
China · 410 months of data from Jan 1985 · Beijing to Melbourne
Both directions
103,439
including Beijing to Melbourne
Flight time
12h 20m
55m longer than the return
Load factor
85%
seats filled on this leg
Traffic: 12 months to May 2026
51,540 passengers flew Melbourne to Beijing in the 12 months to May 2026, out of 103,439 on the route in both directions. Flights run about 85% full, much the same in both directions. This route has been reported for 34 years.
The route
Distances are true from Melbourne; the ring marks the distance to Beijing.
How long is the flight?
Scheduled flight time from Melbourne to Beijing is 12h 20m gate to gate, over 9,080 km. Coming back takes 11h 25m — a difference of 55m, 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
1 flight number currently scheduled from Melbourne to Beijing. These are the numbers you book under.
Not a daily service — this week it is scheduled on Wed, Fri and Sun (3 departures).
Air China · 1 · Airbus A330-300, Boeing 787-9
CA166
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 May 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.
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 May 2026
The route in numbers
| Busiest month on record | 22,442 · Jan 2025 |
| Data coverage | Jan 1985 – May 2026 (410 months) |
| Freight, 12 months to May 2026 | 1,117 tonnes |
| Destination region | China |
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.