Anyone who has ever flown from Melbourne to Sydney or vice versa will know how busy the route can be. In fact, with 65 daily flights between the two capitals, it’s one of the busier routes in the world.

And when you see how much it makes the flying kangaroo, you’ll be forgiven for wondering why there aren’t more cashews in the nut mix.

According to analysis by air travel intelligence company OAG, Qantas earned around $1.14 billion on flights between Australia’s two largest cities in the 12 months up to March 2018. That’s about $43,438 per hour each day.

That makes the MEL-SYD route the second most lucrative in the world in that time, behind only JFK-LHR (New York-London Heathrow), which netted British Airways around $1.39 billion over the same period.

Emirates' LHR-DXB (London-Dubai) route comes in third, earning a little over $1 billion, and Singapore Airlines' LHR-SIN (London-Singapore) is fourth, earning around $950 million.

Another Sydney route also popped into the top 10, with Singapore Airlines’ SYD-SIN (Sydney-Singapore) route earning the carrier $728,773 million.

Here’s the top 10

Did you know that MEL-SYD was such a big money-maker? Have you flown any of these routes? Which is/was your favourite?