Shanghai to Sydney

China · 358 months of data from Aug 1996 · Sydney to Shanghai

Traffic: 12 months to May 2026

222,337 passengers flew Shanghai to Sydney in the 12 months to May 2026, out of 440,887 on the route in both directions. Flights run about 85% full, much the same in both directions. This route has been reported for 30 years.

The route

Distances are true from Sydney; the ring marks the distance to Shanghai.

How long is the flight?

Scheduled flight time from Shanghai to Sydney is 9h 50m gate to gate, over 7,837 km. Coming back takes 10h 20m — a difference of 30m, 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 Sydney. These are the numbers you book under.

Scheduled every day this week — 15 departures in all.

China Eastern · 2 · Airbus A350-900, Airbus A330, Airbus A330-300

MU561 · MU735

Juneyao · 1 · Boeing 787-9

HO1669

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

To May 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.

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.

To May 2026

The route in numbers

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.

Related routes

From Sydney

• Sydney ↔ Singapore
• Sydney ↔ Auckland
• Sydney ↔ Hong Kong
• Sydney ↔ Denpasar
• Sydney ↔ Seoul

To Shanghai

• Melbourne ↔ Shanghai
• Brisbane ↔ Shanghai
• Perth ↔ Shanghai
• Adelaide ↔ Shanghai

Airport data

• Sydney Airport