Flying from Melbourne to Sydney?
Add a departure date and see which side gets the sun.
Flying from Melbourne to Sydney?
Add a departure date and see which side gets the sun.
Flying from Melbourne to Sydney?
Add a departure date and see which side gets the sun.
Melbourne → Sydney
A short flight within Australia. Your watch stays put on arrival.
The city of laneways and trams
Melbourne is built on a flat grid around the Yarra River, threaded by the largest urban tram network in the world and a maze of laneways that hide much of its food and culture scene. It is Australia's second-largest city and a serious rival to Sydney for cultural weight, with a reputation for changeable weather across all four seasons in a single day. Trams, not cars, are the default way to move around the inner city itself, and the network reaches almost every inner suburb. Winters are mild and wet, summers hot and dry, with a famous unpredictability that locals just call "Melbourne weather."
City access
Melbourne Airport has no rail link of any kind, unusual for a city of this size; current airport-rail works are focused on the Sunshine corridor, with passenger service to the airport not expected until the early 2030s. Until then, the SkyBus coach or a taxi/rideshare is the main way to and from the city, typically 20 to 30 minutes depending on traffic. Build that into your timing, since there's no rail fallback if the roads are congested.
Surrounding hubs
| 3,866 km / 2,402 mi | |
| 5,210 km / 3,237 mi | |
| 1,381 km / 858 mi |
The harbor city
Sydney wraps around one of the world's great natural harbors, a city of inlets, beaches, and bridges rather than a single tidy grid. The Airport Link train runs directly from the airport into the city center in about 13 minutes, part of a rail network that, combined with ferries, covers the harborside suburbs well. The city sprawls much farther inland than its harbor image suggests, and those outer suburbs lean more on cars and buses than rail. Beaches, including the famous Bondi, sit close enough to the city center to be a realistic afternoon trip without a car.
Surrounding hubs
| 3,169 km / 1,969 mi | |
| 5,317 km / 3,304 mi | |
| 753 km / 468 mi |
Find out which side of the plane to sit on.
Pick your airports, set your departure time, and you're done.
We calculate the sun's position based on your flight path and departure time, then tell you which side of the plane gets direct sun and which stays shaded. No guessing, just math.
Enter your flight
Pick your departure and arrival airports and set your departure time at the departure airport. FlightSide estimates the duration and you can adjust it if you know the exact schedule.
We track the sun along your route
Your flight path is broken into hundreds of points. At each one we check where the sun is and which side of the plane it faces.
You get a recommendation
Which side of the plane to sit on, left or right, depending on whether you'd rather avoid the sun or enjoy it. The percentages and the map are there if you want to see why.
Want to go deeper? Accuracy, edge cases, polar routes — see the FAQ →
Notes from the product.
Small updates, route observations, and clearer explanations for how the app keeps evolving.
Type less, wait less, wonder more
Airport search now understands metro codes and old city names, FlightSide loads noticeably faster, and a new Feeling lucky button chooses a flight for anyone without one in mind.
A closer look at the route, not just the seat
FlightSide now shows the two cities and key details about the flight alongside the seat recommendation: confirm you picked the right airports, read the time change off two clocks, and check the return leg.
It's all about the sun (after all)
Not all sunlight reaches the side windows. FlightSide now weighs the sun’s angle to the cabin and shows twilight along the route.