Cancelled
0.7%
1.4 pts better than average
Perth to Darwin
PER → DRW · 2,651 km · 62 flights a month · Darwin to Perth
On time (departures)
86.4%
national 78.2%
Flight time
3h 30m
25m shorter than the return
Latest month
0.0%
Jul 2026 cancelled
Airlines
4
on this direction
Punctuality: 12 months to Jul 2026
Flights between Perth and Darwin carried 16,156 passengers in both directions in Jun 2026, ranking 44th of the 62 routes with reported traffic that month. Over the 12 months to Jul 2026, 0.7% of flights from Perth to Darwin were cancelled, well below the national average of 2.1%. Direction matters here: Perth→Darwin departs on time 86.4% of the time against 82.2% coming back. The route is busiest in July and quietest in February.
The route
2,651 km great-circle · 3h 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 | 307 | 0.7% | 90.2% |
| Qantas | Qantas Group | 167 | 0.6% | 84.9% |
| Virgin Australia | Virgin Australia Group | 155 | 0.0% | 88.4% |
| Virgin Australia Regional Airlines | Virgin Australia Group | 118 | 1.7% | 75.9% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Darwin → Perth | 82.2% | 1.1% | 748 |
| Perth → Darwin | 86.4% | 0.7% | 747 |
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, 2009 to 2026
Traffic: to Jun 2026 · Marks show industry events
Passenger figures count both directions together — Perth to Darwin and back. The published statistics do not separate them. Cancellations, punctuality and flight numbers above are for Perth to Darwin 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 Perth to Darwin is 3h 30m gate to gate, over 2,651 km. The return leg is scheduled at 3h 55m — the two directions differ by 25m, so this way round is the quicker one.
A gap that size is normally the wind. Australia sits under strong westerly winds aloft, so eastbound flights ride them and westbound flights push into them — the same aircraft, the same distance, a different flight duration each way.
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
4 flight numbers currently scheduled from Perth to Darwin. These are the numbers you book under — some are operated by a regional partner such as QantasLink or Alliance.
Typical flight time 3h 30m.
Scheduled every day this week — 20 departures in all.
Qantas · 3 · Airbus A319, Airbus A320, Boeing 737-800
QF848 · QF1740 · QF1742
Virgin Australia · 1 · Boeing 737-700, Boeing 737-800, Embraer 190
VA1437
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 | 22,036 · Jul 2025 |
| Pandemic low | 8,147 · Jan 2021 |
| Traffic vs 2019 average | 90.1% |
| Load factor, Jun 2026 | 79.9% |
| Aircraft trips, Jun 2026 | 125 |
| Great-circle distance | 2,651 km |
Traffic: to Jun 2026