Port Macquarie to Sydney
PQQ → SYD · 321 km · 170 flights a month · Sydney to Port Macquarie
Punctuality: 12 months to Jul 2026
Flights between Port Macquarie and Sydney carried 13,353 passengers in both directions in Jun 2026, ranking 52nd of the 62 routes with reported traffic that month. Over the 12 months to Jul 2026, 4.7% of flights from Port Macquarie to Sydney were cancelled, well above the national average of 2.1%. Which airline you fly matters: Rex Airlines cancelled 7.2% of its flights in this direction, 2.3× the rate of QantasLink at 3.2%. Direction matters here: Port Macquarie→Sydney departs on time 76.1% of the time against 70.5% coming back. Traffic is still running at 86.5% of its 2019 average.
The route
321 km great-circle · 1h 20m 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 | 1,282 | 3.2% | 80.4% |
| Rex Airlines | 762 | 7.2% | 68.5% |
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 → Port Macquarie | 70.5% | 4.2% | 2,065 |
| Port Macquarie → Sydney | 76.1% | 4.7% | 2,044 |
A 5.5 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, 2008 to 2026
Traffic: to Jun 2026 · Marks show industry events
Passenger figures count both directions together — Port Macquarie to Sydney and back. The published statistics do not separate them. Cancellations, punctuality and flight numbers above are for Port Macquarie 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 Port Macquarie to Sydney is 1h 20m gate to gate, over 321 km. The return leg is scheduled at 1h 5m — the two directions differ by 15m, 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
8 flight numbers currently scheduled from Port Macquarie 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 20m.
Scheduled every day this week — 44 departures in all.
Qantas · 5 · Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 / DHC-8-400, De Havilland Canada DHC-8-400 Dash 8Q
QF2161 · QF2163 · QF2165 · QF2167 · QF2169
Rex · 3 · Saab 340
ZL6355 · ZL6363 · ZL6373
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 | 19,400 · Dec 2010 |
| Pandemic low | 8,100 · Jun 2021 |
| Traffic vs 2019 average | 86.5% |
| Load factor, Jun 2026 | 68.8% |
| Aircraft trips, Jun 2026 | 313 |
| Great-circle distance | 321 km |
Traffic: to Jun 2026