Cancelled
2.4%
0.4 pts worse than average
Sydney to Adelaide
SYD → ADL · 1,167 km · 564 flights a month · Adelaide to Sydney
On time (departures)
79.3%
national 78.2%
Flight time
2h 10m
15m longer than the return
Latest month
2.0%
Jul 2026 cancelled
Airlines
4
on this direction
Punctuality: 12 months to Jul 2026
Flights between Sydney and Adelaide carried 137,720 passengers in both directions in Jun 2026, ranking 8th of the 62 routes with reported traffic that month. Over the 12 months to Jul 2026, 2.4% of flights from Sydney to Adelaide were cancelled, above the national average of 2.1%. Which airline you fly matters: Jetstar cancelled 4.4% of its flights in this direction, 2.9× the rate of Qantas at 1.5%. Direction matters here: Sydney→Adelaide departs on time 79.3% of the time against 75.8% coming back. The route is busiest in October and quietest in February.
The route
1,167 km great-circle · 2h 10m 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Qantas | Qantas Group | 2,852 | 1.5% | 83.4% |
| Virgin Australia | Virgin Australia Group | 2,155 | 1.9% | 78.4% |
| Jetstar | 1,659 | 4.4% | 73.1% | |
| QantasLink | Qantas Group | 105 | 5.7% | 86.9% |
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 → Adelaide | 79.3% | 2.4% | 6,771 |
| Adelaide → Sydney | 75.8% | 2.6% | 6,764 |
A 3.5 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, 1984 to 2026
Traffic: to Jun 2026 · Marks show industry events
Passenger figures count both directions together — Sydney to Adelaide and back. The published statistics do not separate them. Cancellations, punctuality and flight numbers above are for Sydney to Adelaide 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 Sydney to Adelaide is 2h 10m gate to gate, over 1,167 km. The return leg is scheduled at 1h 55m — 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
23 flight numbers currently scheduled from Sydney to Adelaide. These are the numbers you book under — some are operated by a regional partner such as QantasLink or Alliance.
Typical flight time 2h 10m.
Scheduled every day this week — 134 departures in all.
Qantas · 10 · Boeing 737-800, Boeing 737-800 (winglets), Embraer 190
QF731 · QF733 · QF735 · QF737 · QF739 · QF741 · QF743 · QF745 · QF749 · QF1993
Virgin Australia · 8 · Boeing 737-800, Boeing 737-800 (winglets), Boeing 737-700, Boeing 737 MAX 8
VA404 · VA412 · VA414 · VA418 · VA424 · VA428 · VA434 · VA442
Jetstar · 5 · Airbus A320, Airbus A321, Airbus A321 NEO, Airbus A320 (Sharklets)
JQ760 · JQ762 · JQ764 · JQ768 · JQ770
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 | 179,288 · Oct 2024 |
| Pandemic low | 1,227 · Sep 2021 |
| Traffic vs 2019 average | 97.9% |
| Load factor, Jun 2026 | 78.0% |
| Aircraft trips, Jun 2026 | 1,067 |
| Great-circle distance | 1,167 km |
Traffic: to Jun 2026