Passengers
38,495
Sydney to Noumea, 12 months to Jun 2026
Sydney to Noumea
New Caledonia · 498 months of data from Jan 1985 · Noumea to Sydney
Both directions
79,715
including Noumea to Sydney
Flight time
2h 50m
30m shorter than the return
Load factor
65%
seats filled on this leg
Traffic: 12 months to Jun 2026
38,495 passengers flew Sydney to Noumea in the 12 months to Jun 2026, out of 79,715 on the route in both directions. Flights Sydney to Noumea run 65% full, against 70% coming back. This route has been reported for 42 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
2008
102,629 passengers
Latest complete year
2025
78,534 passengers
The route
Distances are true from Sydney; the ring marks the distance to Noumea.
How long is the flight?
Scheduled flight time from Sydney to Noumea is 2h 50m gate to gate, over 1,980 km. Coming back takes 3h 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
2 flight numbers currently scheduled from Sydney to Noumea. These are the numbers you book under.
Not a daily service — this week it is scheduled on Tue, Wed, Thu, Sat and Sun (5 departures).
Qantas · 1 · Boeing 737-800
QF91
Aircalin · 1 · Airbus A320 NEO, Airbus A330-900
SB141
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
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.
To Jun 2026
The route in numbers
| Busiest month on record | 11,413 · Jan 2023 |
| Data coverage | Jan 1985 – Jun 2026 (498 months) |
| Freight, 12 months to Jun 2026 | 771 tonnes |
| Destination region | New Caledonia |
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.