Qantas and budget offshoot Jetstar will base up to 15 domestic aircraft at Sydney’s new curfew-free airport within a year of its opening in late 2026, in the first major commitment by airlines to fly from the $5.3 billion aviation hub in the city’s outer west.
The deal to operate 10 Jetstar and five Qantas aircraft from Western Sydney Airport, which is located about 50 kilometres from the central business district, will result in the two airlines hiring about 700 people. Their single-aisle aircraft will fly to destinations such as Melbourne, Brisbane and the Gold Coast.
Western Sydney Airport is due to open in 2026.Credit: Brook Mitchell
Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce said the new airport would be a growth opportunity for the airline, emphasising its “big strategic advantages” in operating around the clock, technology that allowed aircraft to be turned around quickly, and a modern baggage system.
“Our data shows that more than two million trips per year are taken by people who live in the western Sydney catchment, so we know there will be demand for these flights from day one,” he said.
Joyce said the deal would make Western Sydney Airport the sixth-largest airport on the airline group’s network in the first year, and would complement its operations at Kingsford-Smith.
“It is a big entry for an airport that has just been created,” he said. “It’s going to be a very efficient facility and that makes a big difference to us. You’ll have shorter taxiing times that allows us to turn around aircraft faster. That means we can keep the airfares lower.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and federal Transport Minister Catherine King at Western Sydney Airport on Thursday.Credit: Brook Mitchell
The 15 domestic aircraft to be dedicated to the new airport in western Sydney will carry about four million passengers each year on more than 25,000 flights.
It will pale in comparison to the size of Qantas and Jetstar’s operations at Kingsford-Smith Airport in Mascot. About 62 per cent of the 23 million domestic passengers who passed through Sydney Airport over the past year flew on Qantas or Jetstar aircraft.
Qantas is still in talks with the airport’s executives to fly international and freight aircraft from western Sydney.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the airport would be “top of the range from day one” and make a difference for people in western Sydney.
“This airport also has such broad community support,” he said.
Albanese and federal Infrastructure and Transport Minister Catherine King joined Joyce and other executives on a tour of the airport, which was enveloped in thick fog on Thursday.
Western Sydney Airport chief executive Simon Hickey said its advanced technology would include an instrument landing system that would allow aircraft to take off and land on foggy mornings like on Thursday.
“[The airport] is also designed for growth, and over the decades ahead we’ll actually become the same scale and size as JFK [airport in New York] and Dubai,” said Hickey, who once headed Qantas’ international operations.
The airport’s executives have been in talks with as many as 60 airlines interested in flying to the new hub after it opens. The airport’s 3.7-kilometre runway is long enough for aircraft as large as A380 superjumbos to land.
Construction of the airport near the foot of the Blue Mountains has reached its halfway point and is at its peak workforce of about 3500 people. It will be able to handle 10 million passengers a year when it opens, making it a similar size to Adelaide Airport.
Built on a 1780-hectare site, the airport has been designed to grow to accommodate 82 million passengers annually by the 2060s.
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.
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.
Preliminary flight paths for the curfew-free airport are due to be released within weeks.
Asked whether the federal government would pay to insulate homes near the airport from aircraft noise, Albanese said there was a standard formula for determining when such measures were implemented. “That’s the same for every airport in Australia,” he said.
Sydney Airport has a curfew from 11pm to 6am, although there are exemptions for a certain number of flights and smaller planes such as air ambulances.
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