Passengers
245,787
Sydney to Queenstown, 12 months to May 2026
Sydney to Queenstown
New Zealand · 324 months of data from Jul 1995 · Queenstown to Sydney
Both directions
485,786
including Queenstown to Sydney
Flight time
2h 55m
20m shorter than the return
Load factor
81%
seats filled on this leg
Traffic: 12 months to May 2026
245,787 passengers flew Sydney to Queenstown in the 12 months to May 2026, out of 485,786 on the route in both directions. Flights run about 81% full, much the same in both directions. This route has been reported for 27 years.
The route
Distances are true from Sydney; the ring marks the distance to Queenstown.
How long is the flight?
Scheduled flight time from Sydney to Queenstown is 2h 55m gate to gate, over 1,941 km. Coming back takes 3h 15m — a difference of 20m, 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
7 flight numbers currently scheduled from Sydney to Queenstown. These are the numbers you book under.
Scheduled every day this week — 37 departures in all.
Jetstar · 2 · Airbus A320, Airbus A320 NEO
JQ221 · JQ223
Qantas · 2 · Boeing 737-800
QF121 · QF123
Virgin Australia · 2 · Boeing 737 MAX 8, Boeing 737-800, Boeing 737
VA161 · VA163
Air New Zealand · 1 · Airbus A320 NEO
NZ232
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, 1995 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
| Busiest month on record | 51,313 · Jan 2026 |
| Data coverage | Jul 1995 – May 2026 (324 months) |
| Freight, 12 months to May 2026 | 6 tonnes |
| Destination region | New Zealand |
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.