---
title: "MEL — Melbourne Airport, Melbourne · Orbit"
description: "Melbourne Airport (MEL/YMML) serves Melbourne, Australia. Opened 1970, 25.7 million passengers in 2022, 19 km from Melbourne."
url: https://orbitflights.app/airports/mel
---

Melbourne · Australia · Oceania

# MEL — Melbourne

Melbourne Airport serves Melbourne, Australia, 19 km from the city centre, and sits at 37.7°S, 144.8°E. This site carries 5 routes touching it, with the great circle distance for each.

**IATA**
MEL
the code on your bag tag

**ICAO**
YMML
used by air traffic control

**Opened**
1970
per Wikidata

**Passengers**
25.7M
in 2022

## History & name

Melbourne Airport opened in 1970 and is operated by Australia Pacific Airports Corporation. It sits 19 km from central Melbourne and handled 25.7 million passengers in 2022\. Its two runways reach 3,657 m at the longest, at an elevation of 434 ft.

Read more: [Wikipedia ↗](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melbourne%5FAirport) · [Wikidata ↗](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q733738)

## At a glance

**Full name**
Melbourne Airport

**Serves**
Melbourne, Australia

**City centre**
19 km from Melbourne

**Opened**
1970

**Operator**
Australia Pacific Airports Corporation

**Passengers**
25.7 million in 2022

**Runways**
2 runways, longest 3,657 m

**Elevation**
434 ft (132 m)

**Map**
[Open in Google Maps ↗](https://www.google.com/maps/search/?api=1&query=-37.67070,144.83790)

**Website**
[melbourneairport.com.au ↗](http://melbourneairport.com.au/)

## Where it sits

37.7°S, 144.8°E puts MEL in the southern hemisphere, 4,189 km from the equator and 5,819 km from the South pole.

Of the 661 airports on this site it is the **643rd** most northerly, which makes it the 19th most southerly.

## Straight through the middle

Straight down through the centre of the Earth comes out at 37.7°N, 35.2°W. The nearest airport on this site to that point is João Paulo II (PDL) in Portugal, still 832 km away — most of the planet's antipodes are ocean.

## What’s near it

The closest other airport on this site is **Melbourne Avalon** (AVV), 52 km away in a straight line. It is the only one within 100 km.

AVV Melbourne Avalon 52 km

## Distances from MEL

Great circle distance and an estimated time in the air. The longest is Los Angeles, at 12,758 km.

| To                                                        |     | Distance  | Estimated |
| --------------------------------------------------------- | --- | --------- | --------- |
| [Sydney](https://orbitflights.app/routes/syd-to-mel)      | SYD | 706 km    | 1h 23m    |
| [Auckland](https://orbitflights.app/routes/mel-to-akl)    | AKL | 2,637 km  | 3h 47m    |
| [Perth](https://orbitflights.app/routes/mel-to-per)       | PER | 2,700 km  | 3h 51m    |
| [Los Angeles](https://orbitflights.app/routes/lax-to-mel) | LAX | 12,758 km | 16h 21m   |
| [Los Angeles](https://orbitflights.app/routes/mel-to-lax) | LAX | 12,758 km | 16h 21m   |

[Distance from MEL to any airport →](https://orbitflights.app/distance?from=MEL&to=LAX) [Map a trip from MEL →](https://orbitflights.app/tools/flight-route-map?r=MEL-LAX)

## Where these facts come from

The profile is looked up, not written from memory: type, runways, elevation and the official website from [OurAirports](https://ourairports.com/data/) (public domain); opening year, namesake, operator and passenger count from [Wikidata](https://www.wikidata.org/) (CC0); the city centre from [GeoNames](https://www.geonames.org/) (CC BY 4.0). Where a source has nothing, the line is left out. Distances, neighbours and the antipode are computed from the coordinates.

What you won’t find: terminal maps, airline lists, shops or live departures. Orbit is a logbook, not a flight tracker, and a page that guessed at those would be worse than one that leaves them out.

[Measure MEL to anywhere →](https://orbitflights.app/distance) [Flights to Melbourne →](https://orbitflights.app/flights-to/melbourne)

## Flown through MEL?

Orbit knows all 8,801 airports offline and works out the distance the moment you enter two codes.

[Download now](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.qwertybit.orbit)

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Markdown copy of https://orbitflights.app/airports/mel for language models and agents. Site index: https://orbitflights.app/llms.txt