Cancelled
4.8%
2.8 pts worse than average
Sydney to Canberra
SYD → CBR · 236 km · 614 flights a month · Canberra to Sydney
On time (departures)
79.7%
national 78.2%
Flight time
1h
scheduled, gate to gate
Latest month
4.7%
Jul 2026 cancelled
Airlines
3
on this direction
Punctuality: 12 months to Jul 2026
Flights between Sydney and Canberra carried 44,518 passengers in both directions in Jun 2026, ranking 27th of the 62 routes with reported traffic that month. Over the 12 months to Jul 2026, 4.8% of flights from Sydney to Canberra were cancelled, well above the national average of 2.1%. Traffic is still running at 57% of its 2019 average. The route is busiest in November and quietest in January.
The route
236 km great-circle · 1h 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| QantasLink | Qantas Group | 4,246 | 5.6% | 76.4% |
| Virgin Australia | Virgin Australia Group | 2,989 | 3.7% | 83.8% |
| Qantas | Qantas Group | 134 | 6.0% | 88.9% |
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 Canberra and back. The published statistics do not separate them. Cancellations, punctuality and flight numbers above are for Sydney to Canberra 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 Canberra is 1h gate to gate, over 236 km. The return leg is scheduled at much the same, 1h.
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
25 flight numbers currently scheduled from Sydney to Canberra. These are the numbers you book under — some are operated by a regional partner such as QantasLink or Alliance.
Typical flight time 1h.
Scheduled every day this week — 156 departures in all.
Qantas · 15 · Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 / DHC-8-400, De Havilland Canada DHC-8-400 Dash 8Q, Embraer 190
QF1423 · QF1427 · QF1429 · QF1431 · QF1435 · QF1437 · QF1439 · QF1441 · QF1443 · QF1449 · QF1451 · QF1455 · QF1459 · QF1461 · QF1813
Virgin Australia · 10 · Saab 340
VA630 · VA634 · VA638 · VA640 · VA644 · VA656 · VA660 · VA662 · VA670 · VA672
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 | 105,180 · Mar 2010 |
| Pandemic low | 13,815 · Nov 2021 |
| Traffic vs 2019 average | 57% |
| Load factor, Jun 2026 | 71.4% |
| Aircraft trips, Jun 2026 | 1,079 |
| Great-circle distance | 236 km |
Traffic: to Jun 2026