Passengers
110,991
San Francisco to Sydney, 12 months to Jun 2026
San Francisco to Sydney
USA · 496 months of data from Jan 1985 · Sydney to San Francisco
Both directions
225,267
including Sydney to San Francisco
Flight time
14h 55m
1h 35m longer than the return
Load factor
72%
seats filled on this leg
Traffic: 12 months to Jun 2026
110,991 passengers flew San Francisco to Sydney in the 12 months to Jun 2026, out of 225,267 on the route in both directions. Flights run about 72% full, much the same in both directions. This route has been reported for 41 years.
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
Jan 1985
first recorded month with passengers > 0
Peak complete year
2019
342,503 passengers
Latest complete year
2025
226,993 passengers
The route
Distances are true from Sydney; the ring marks the distance to San Francisco.
How long is the flight?
Scheduled flight time from San Francisco to Sydney is 14h 55m gate to gate, over 11,937 km. Coming back takes 13h 20m — a difference of 1h 35m, 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
2 flight numbers currently scheduled from San Francisco to Sydney. These are the numbers you book under.
Scheduled every day this week — 10 departures in all.
Qantas · 1 · Boeing 787-9
QF74
United · 1 · Boeing 787-9
UA863
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
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.
To Jun 2026
The route in numbers
| Busiest month on record | 33,775 · Jul 2009 |
| Data coverage | Jan 1985 – Jun 2026 (496 months) |
| Freight, 12 months to Jun 2026 | 4,439 tonnes |
| Destination region | USA |
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.