Passengers
123,767
Sydney to Wellington, 12 months to Jun 2026
Sydney to Wellington
New Zealand · 478 months of data from Jan 1985 · Wellington to Sydney
Both directions
255,238
including Wellington to Sydney
Flight time
3h 15m
35m shorter than the return
Load factor
66%
seats filled on this leg
Traffic: 12 months to Jun 2026
123,767 passengers flew Sydney to Wellington in the 12 months to Jun 2026, out of 255,238 on the route in both directions. Flights run about 66% full, much the same in both directions. This route has been reported for 40 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
2019
351,873 passengers
Latest complete year
2025
259,028 passengers
The route
Distances are true from Sydney; the ring marks the distance to Wellington.
How long is the flight?
Scheduled flight time from Sydney to Wellington is 3h 15m gate to gate, over 2,232 km. Coming back takes 3h 50m — a difference of 35m, 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
3 flight numbers currently scheduled from Sydney to Wellington. These are the numbers you book under.
Scheduled every day this week — 18 departures in all.
Qantas · 2 · Boeing 737-800
QF161 · QF163
Air New Zealand · 1 · Airbus A320 NEO
NZ248
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.
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.
Gaps indicate missing observations, not zero values.
To Jun 2026
The route in numbers
| Busiest month on record | 34,184 · Oct 2011 |
| Data coverage | Jan 1985 – Jun 2026 (478 months) |
| Freight, 12 months to Jun 2026 | 218 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.