Passengers
78,707
Sydney to Johannesburg, 12 months to Jun 2026
Sydney to Johannesburg
South Africa · 427 months of data from Jan 1985 · Johannesburg to Sydney
Both directions
161,858
including Johannesburg to Sydney
Flight time
14h 50m
2h 40m longer than the return
Load factor
59%
seats filled on this leg
Traffic: 12 months to Jun 2026
78,707 passengers flew Sydney to Johannesburg in the 12 months to Jun 2026, out of 161,858 on the route in both directions. Flights Sydney to Johannesburg run 59% full, against 72% coming back. This route has been reported for 36 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
2012
182,766 passengers
Latest complete year
2025
176,922 passengers
The route
Distances are true from Sydney; the ring marks the distance to Johannesburg.
How long is the flight?
Scheduled flight time from Sydney to Johannesburg is 14h 50m gate to gate, over 11,044 km. Coming back takes 12h 10m — a difference of 2h 40m, 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
1 flight number currently scheduled from Sydney to Johannesburg. These are the numbers you book under.
Not a daily service — this week it is scheduled on Mon, Wed, Thu and Sat (4 departures).
Qantas · 1 · Airbus A380-800
QF63
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.
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.
Gaps indicate missing observations, not zero values.
To Jun 2026
The route in numbers
| Busiest month on record | 17,795 · Dec 2024 |
| Data coverage | Jan 1985 – Jun 2026 (427 months) |
| Freight, 12 months to Jun 2026 | 1,000 tonnes |
| Destination region | South Africa |
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.