Flight path changes for Western Sydney Airport revealed

The flight paths for Sydney’s new international airport have been authorised, revealing a range of changes aiming to spare some of western Sydney’s more populated areas from overnight noise.

The Blue Mountains and Wallacia will benefit from changes made to the flight paths for Western Sydney International Airport, unveiled by federal Infrastructure and Transport Minister Catherine King on Wednesday.

Infrastructure and Transport Minister Catherine King (third from left) announced the authorisation of the amended paths. Credit: Edwina Pickles

Stepping out on the newly completed 3.7-kilometre runway to announce the authorisation of the paths, on a freezing cold morning in Sydney’s west, King called it a “crucial step” to opening the airport in late 2026.

The flight paths were first revealed in 2023, with a final Environmental Impact Statement released in November 2024. Following feedback from the community, King said a total of five changes were made to help minimise aircraft noise, four of which relate to night-time operations.

“We’ve learnt lessons from other airports, which is why I have imposed a number of additional conditions that will reduce our aircraft noise,” King said.

“Most notably, I’ll be issuing a ministerial direction to Airservices Australia … to make reciprocal runway operations the default operating mode at night, including the use of a specific noise abatement procedure, when both are safe to do so.”

Reciprocal runway operations, or RRO, is a flight path design where planes take off and land from the same direction, but at the opposite end of the runway.

When RRO mode is in use and when traffic permits, jet aircraft departing to destinations in the north, north-west and west would be kept on runway heading – travelling in the same direction of the runway – longer, until clear of Silverdale, before being processed by air traffic control to their destinations.

“In particular, this will achieve the overall lowest possible impact on surrounding communities and will direct aircraft away from the Blue Mountains, Wallacia and the most heavily populated areas of western Sydney at night,” King said.

Other changes included removing the “Runway 23 Northeast Night (RRO)” flight path for jet aircraft and reallocating those aircraft to a south-eastern flight path, travelling south of the city.

The changes are expected to reduce departure overflights near Linden, in the Blue Mountains, by approximately 50 per cent when in use.

A map showing cumulative noise from runways 5 and 23 at the new Western Sydney International. A running washing machine is 70 decibels.Credit: Federal Government

The authorisation of the flight plan also includes recommendations that the airport lessee company, WSA Co, establishes an environmental monitoring program to monitor the impacts of aircraft noise within and adjacent to the greater Blue Mountains area.

King said the airport’s “greenfield site” meant significantly fewer houses would be impacted by night-time noise compared to Mascot’s Sydney Airport.

“Can I say that there will be no noise for anyone? I can’t say that because that’s the very nature of operating an airport, is that you have planes, and planes do make noise,” she said.

The airport is expected to see 10 million passengers and around 81,000 air traffic movements annually by 2033.

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