Passengers
204,293
Shanghai to Melbourne, 12 months to Jun 2026
Shanghai to Melbourne
China · 344 months of data from Aug 1996 · Melbourne to Shanghai
Both directions
404,295
including Melbourne to Shanghai
Flight time
10h 15m
20m shorter than the return
Load factor
85%
seats filled on this leg
Traffic: 12 months to Jun 2026
204,293 passengers flew Shanghai to Melbourne in the 12 months to Jun 2026, out of 404,295 on the route in both directions. Flights run about 85% full, much the same in both directions. This route has been reported for 29 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
Aug 1996
first recorded month with passengers > 0
Latest complete year · also peak
2025
375,053 passengers
The route
Distances are true from Melbourne; the ring marks the distance to Shanghai.
How long is the flight?
Scheduled flight time from Shanghai to Melbourne is 10h 15m gate to gate, over 7,986 km. Coming back takes 10h 35m — a difference of 20m, so this direction is the quicker 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
3 flight numbers currently scheduled from Shanghai to Melbourne. These are the numbers you book under.
Scheduled every day this week — 13 departures in all.
China Eastern · 2 · Boeing 787-9
MU737 · MU739
Juneyao · 1 · Boeing 787-9
HO1655
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, 1996 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.
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 | 51,484 · Feb 2026 |
| Data coverage | Aug 1996 – Jun 2026 (344 months) |
| Freight, 12 months to Jun 2026 | 21,099 tonnes |
| Destination region | China |
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.