Live Departures from Avalon Airport (AVV), Avalon

Avalon (AVV) is Melbourne's secondary airport, sitting about 50 kilometres southwest of the Melbourne CBD and roughly 15 kilometres from Geelong, in the City of Greater Geelong. It shares its site with a Defence aerodrome and is run on a long lease by a Linfox subsidiary, which gives it an unusual character for a passenger airport: low-rise and low-frills, built around a single small terminal rather than the sprawl of a capital-city hub.

For travellers it works best as a low-cost alternative to Tullamarine and a convenient option for the Geelong and Bellarine region. Passenger numbers are a fraction of Melbourne's main airport, and the network has shifted with the budget carriers that use it, so the schedule can look thin compared with a major hub.

Jetstar is the airport's mainstay and carries almost all of the scheduled flying, running low-cost domestic services to a handful of east-coast and Adelaide destinations. This is a leisure and value network flown on narrowbody jets, so expect single-aisle aircraft and a check-in crowd weighted towards holidaymakers.

International flying has come and gone, and recently come back. Earlier services to Kuala Lumpur and Bali ended around 2020, and the short-lived carrier Bonza, which briefly added domestic routes here, stopped flying in 2024. Jetstar has since returned the airport to international service with direct flights to Bali, flown on a narrowbody jet, though the day-to-day reality is still a compact domestic low-cost operation with one leisure international route rather than a long-haul hub.

There is one small terminal of around 4,500 square metres with a handful of gates, sized for narrowbody jets. There are no aerobridges, so you board across the tarmac, and there are no lounges. Check-in and security are quick by big-airport standards, which is part of the appeal. Parking is surface car parking close to the terminal, with car hire desks on site, and taxis and rideshare pick up out front.

Getting there takes a little planning. SkyBus runs a coach to Melbourne's Southern Cross Station, with a stop at Werribee, and a typical run of around 90 minutes depending on traffic. There is no direct airport rail line; the nearest train connection is Lara station on the Geelong line, linked to the airport by a local bus route. Direct freeway access off the Princes Freeway makes driving the simplest option for most travellers, so allow time for the trip from Melbourne if you are not flying out of Geelong's doorstep.