Cancelled
2.6%
0.5 pts worse than average
Melbourne to Launceston
MEL → LST · 476 km · 301 flights a month · Launceston to Melbourne
On time (departures)
66.6%
national 78.2%
Flight time
1h 10m
scheduled, gate to gate
Latest month
1.7%
Jul 2026 cancelled
Airlines
3
on this direction
Punctuality: 12 months to Jul 2026
Flights between Melbourne and Launceston carried 65,713 passengers in both directions in Jun 2026, ranking 19th of the 62 routes with reported traffic that month. Over the 12 months to Jul 2026, 2.6% of flights from Melbourne to Launceston were cancelled, above the national average of 2.1%. Which airline you fly matters: QantasLink cancelled 6.2% of its flights in this direction, 22.9× the rate of Virgin Australia at 0.3%. Direction matters here: Launceston→Melbourne departs on time 70.8% of the time against 66.6% coming back. The route is busiest in December and quietest in June.
The route
476 km great-circle · 1h 10m 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 | 1,312 | 6.2% | 64.7% |
| Jetstar | 1,198 | 0.8% | 63.2% | |
| Virgin Australia | Virgin Australia Group | 1,107 | 0.3% | 72.3% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Melbourne → Launceston | 66.6% | 2.6% | 3,617 |
| Launceston → Melbourne | 70.8% | 2.9% | 3,615 |
A 4.2 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 — Melbourne to Launceston and back. The published statistics do not separate them. Cancellations, punctuality and flight numbers above are for Melbourne to Launceston 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 Melbourne to Launceston is 1h 10m gate to gate, over 476 km. The return leg is scheduled at much the same, 1h 5m.
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
11 flight numbers currently scheduled from Melbourne to Launceston. These are the numbers you book under — some are operated by a regional partner such as QantasLink or Alliance.
Typical flight time 1h 10m.
Scheduled every day this week — 62 departures in all.
Qantas · 5 · Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 / DHC-8-400, De Havilland Canada DHC-8-400 Dash 8Q, Airbus A220-300
QF1557 · QF2091 · QF2093 · QF2095 · QF2097
Jetstar · 3 · Airbus A320
JQ733 · JQ737 · JQ739
Virgin Australia · 3 · Boeing 737-800
VA1362 · VA1368 · VA1380
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 | 100,569 · Jan 2020 |
| Pandemic low | 898 · Oct 2021 |
| Traffic vs 2019 average | 94.3% |
| Load factor, Jun 2026 | 84.0% |
| Aircraft trips, Jun 2026 | 596 |
| Great-circle distance | 476 km |
Traffic: to Jun 2026