Western Sydney Airport welcomes first passenger flights

Western Sydney International Airport opened to passengers on Sunday, 25 October, with a sold-out Jetstar service to the Gold Coast marking its first commercial departure.

Flight JQ362 took off shortly before 11:30 local time, following the opening of check-in at 08:00. A return service from the Gold Coast was scheduled to arrive at 15:00, followed by the airport’s first Melbourne departure at 18:00.

Located at Badgerys Creek, approximately 45 kilometres from central Sydney, the airport operates around the clock, offering an alternative to the curfew-restricted Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport. Cargo operations began in July.

Chief executive Simon Hickey described the opening as a generational change for Australian aviation. The initial terminal can handle about ten million passengers a year, a level the airport expects to reach in the early to mid-2030s.

Longer-term development, including additional terminals and a second runway, could increase capacity to 82 million passengers a year in the 2060s. These figures represent potential future capacity rather than opening-year traffic forecasts.

Hickey said passengers could have access to more than 250 destinations through connecting airline networks within just over a year. That figure includes onward connections and does not represent the number of nonstop routes from Western Sydney.

Approximately 10,000 people worked on the airport’s construction, around half from Western Sydney. The airport estimates that up to 8,500 jobs will support operations across the precinct once annual passenger numbers reach ten million.