Freight industry leaders will help design Western Sydney Airport freight precinct
Western Sydney International Airport will be home to the world’s first fully digital airfreight precinct, with 10 of the country’s major freight companies signing on to help design it.
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Ten of Australia’s major freight companies have signed on to help design the world’s first fully digital freight hub at Western Sydney International (Nancy-Bird Walton) Airport.
Design work will begin within the next six months, with industry leaders including Australia Post, DB Schenker and FedEx providing insights to help optimise the functionality of the facility.
Other companies to enter memorandums of understanding with Western Sydney Airport on Monday included DHL Express, DSV Air and Sea, Menzies Aviation, Swissport, Qantas Freight, Skyroad Logistics and Wymap.
Initial discussions will also take place about potential operations from Sydney’s second airport.
Western Sydney Airport chief executive Graham Millett said the facility will “provide a huge boost to Australia’s export and import capability”.
“We plan to try and open the freight (hub) as quickly as we can,” he said.
“Sydney Airport’s becoming capacity-constrained very rapidly, so we’d like to open freight operations here ideally at the end of 2025, but hopefully no later than the first half of 2026.”
Mr Millett said the scale of the precinct, which will have dedicated road access off The Northern Rd, will be much larger than others around the country.
“We’ll be opening with a capacity about one-fifth of the total airfreight capacity of all of Australia,” he said.
“It will be the world’s first fully digital freight facility, which means that freight can move in much more quickly and move out much more quickly and in freight, time is money, so one of our aspirations here is to lower the unit cost of freight and make airfreight available to a wider section of the market.”
He said the airport’s curfew-free operations will be the key to “unlocking new export opportunities for businesses and producers” across western Sydney and NSW.
“Goods produced in NSW will no longer have to be trucked to Brisbane or Melbourne in order to reach lucrative Asian markets overnight,” Mr Millett said.
The first stage of the airport will have the potential to process about 220,000 tonnes of airfreight each year, with that figure expected to grow with demand.
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