Passengers
138,591
Queenstown to Melbourne, 12 months to Jun 2026
Queenstown to Melbourne
New Zealand · 233 months of data from Jul 1999 · Melbourne to Queenstown
Both directions
282,311
including Melbourne to Queenstown
Flight time
3h 25m
15m longer than the return
Load factor
85%
seats filled on this leg
Traffic: 12 months to Jun 2026
138,591 passengers flew Queenstown to Melbourne in the 12 months to Jun 2026, out of 282,311 on the route in both directions. Flights run about 85% full, much the same in both directions.
Passenger history milestones
Recorded milestones use this city-pair passenger series, with both directions combined. A first positive record is not a service-launch date; complete calendar years require all twelve observed, non-null months.
First positive passenger record
Jul 1999
first recorded month with passengers > 0
Latest complete year · also peak
2025
268,103 passengers
The route
Distances are true from Melbourne; the ring marks the distance to Queenstown.
How long is the flight?
Scheduled flight time from Queenstown to Melbourne is 3h 25m gate to gate, over 2,150 km. Coming back takes 3h 10m — a difference of 15m, 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
4 flight numbers currently scheduled from Queenstown to Melbourne. These are the numbers you book under.
Scheduled every day this week — 19 departures in all.
Jetstar · 1 · Airbus A320
JQ220
Air New Zealand · 1 · Airbus A320 NEO
NZ265
Qantas · 1 · Boeing 737-800
QF178
Virgin Australia · 1 · Boeing 737, Boeing 737-800
VA146
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, 1999 to 2026
Gaps indicate missing observations, not zero values.
Gaps indicate missing observations, not zero values.
Gaps indicate missing observations, not zero values.
To Jun 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.
Gaps indicate missing observations, not zero values.
Gaps indicate missing observations, not zero values.
Gaps indicate missing observations, not zero values.
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.
Gaps indicate missing observations, not zero values.
Gaps indicate missing observations, not zero values.
Gaps indicate missing observations, not zero values.
To Jun 2026
The route in numbers
| Busiest month on record | 33,373 · Jan 2025 |
| Data coverage | Jul 1999 – Jun 2026 (233 months) |
| Freight, 12 months to Jun 2026 | 9 tonnes |
| Destination region | New Zealand |
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.