Western Sydney Airport is in talks with as many as 60 airlines interested in flying to the new hub after it opens in late 2026 as construction is ramped up on a large terminal to serve domestic and international passengers.
Despite wet weather and the pandemic disrupting the $5.3 billion project, Western Sydney Airport chief executive Simon Hickey said construction of the airport remained “on time and on budget”.
Western Sydney Airport’s new terminal is quickly rising from the ground.Credit: Janie Barrett
A massive roof will be installed for the airport’s terminal early in the new year, while the first of multiple pours of concrete for the 3.7-kilometre runway is due to start before Christmas. Residents near the curfew-free airport are due to be consulted on draft flight paths for aircraft in the middle of next year.
Positioning it as a “growth airport”, Hickey wants to tap western Sydney’s fast-growing and diverse population, rather than compete aggressively for passengers with Sydney Airport, which is about eight kilometres from the CBD.
“There’ll be a very strong international feel to this airport on opening. We’re talking to about 60 airlines internationally at the moment about coming here. That’s a lot of airlines,” he said.
“There’ll be very strong demand for a strong Asia-Pacific network. We’re all about growth, not about competing to take traffic off another airport.”
Western Sydney Airport chief executive Simon Hickey says the airport is not designed to take traffic off other airports.Credit: Janie Barrett
About 2.5 million people live within about an hour of the airport site at Badgerys Creek, making it the third-largest catchment for an Australian airport.
Hickey, who once headed Qantas’ international operations, said it was likely to be another two years before global airline capacity returned to pre-pandemic levels due to the time it took for large aircraft to pass heavy maintenance checks after being grounded for long periods.
“All the airlines in the world are lined up in maintenance facilities waiting to get their planes through,” he said. “At the same time, manufacturers delayed manufacturing a number of their lines of aircraft.”
Sydney’s new airport will be able to handle 10 million passengers a year when it opens in late 2026, making it a similar size to Adelaide Airport. Built on a 1780-hectare site about 50 kilometres from Sydney’s CBD, the airport has been designed to grow to 82 million passengers annually by the 2060s.
Hickey said the airport would use the latest technology to slash queuing times for passengers and turn around planes for flights quickly. Creating space and natural light was a key focus of the terminal’s design, in a move intended to reduce passenger stress.
“It’s a really generous space – it’s not a tin shed,” he said. “All of our systems are going to be the latest.”
The Multiplex-built terminal will feature a computer-driven baggage system used by a number of the world’s top airports, instead of a conveyor belt method in use at other Australian airports. The new system will use digital technology to track, load and shift bags to and from planes.
Passengers will be able to track their bags using an app and know when they will turn up on a baggage carousel after getting off a flight.
“Passengers are going to have greater surety that their bag is where it should be and that nothing has happened to it,” Hickey said. “They call baggage systems the lungs of the airport because once you’ve got them in it’s very difficult to move structures to change that bag system.”
The veteran of the airline and construction industries believes the airport will change western Sydney in the same way the Harbour Bridge did the city 90 years ago. “Most of western Sydney travels more than an hour every day to get to work. This will change that dynamic,” he said.
“This is a greenfield airport. Normally, you might do an additional terminal, or you might do a runway – we’re doing all of that here.”
Andrew Chambers, a funds manager at investment firm Martin Currie, said Sydney Airport’s proximity to the CBD meant the new airport at Badgerys Creek would struggle to attract business travellers, while international passengers would prefer the incumbent because it had more flight connections to other destinations.
“The new airport should still get decent use and long-term growth, but I don’t think you will see a massive change in market share in the early years,” she said. “It will be more gradual.”
The terminal and runway are due to be completed by 2025, giving a year to bed down operations before the first passengers pass through the airport’s gates.
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