Sydney’s new international airport ready for passenger flights as early as July

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Sydney’s new $6 billion international airport will be ready for passenger flights as early as next July as emergency drills and testing of complex systems such as automated baggage are ramped up.

Signalling the fast-approaching start of passenger services, Western Sydney Airport chief operating officer Matt Duffy said the new aviation hub would “definitely be open” in the second half of next year, although the exact start of flights would depend on airlines.

“Ultimately, we don’t control fleet schedules – that’s really the domain of the airlines,” he said. “Our job here is to make sure that the airport is ready. So we’ll be ready within the second half of next year. The airlines ultimately will make a decision on ... how they schedule their fleets.”

About 1800 bags were used in a trial of the automated system on Thursday.

Airlines are expected to want to start flying there at least a month before Christmas next year to iron out teething problems. Christmas would be the worst time to start flights because it is the busiest period for air travel.

Pressed on when flights would start, Duffy said the prospect of the first passenger services in July next year would be “ambitious”.

The first cargo flights are expected to take off from the new airport at Badgerys Creek in the middle of next year before passenger aircraft start flying there. Qantas and Menzies are already fitting out facilities they will operate in the giant cargo hub near the southern end of the 3.7-kilometre runway.

As part of the testing of operational readiness, the automated baggage system was put to the test on Thursday when staff used about1800 bags of various weights.

Luggage was taken all the way from bag drop-off in the terminal’s departure area to ramp facilities on the airport’s air-side via security screening, as well as in the opposite direction.

“We’ve set up a whole lot of dummy flights. And the whole art to this is actually connecting people with their bags,” Duffy said.

“[It is] to really pressure-test the system. We get those 1800 bags and consecutively push them through on multiple flights and make sure they end up in all the destinations where they’re meant to go.”

Staff test the automated baggage system at Western Sydney Airport on Thursday.

With construction complete, Duffy said trials over coming months of dozens of technology systems and assets was about testing resilience. “You have to expect the unexpected – this is when the rubber hits the road,” he said.

Under supervision of air regulators, a Cessna Conquest pilot also carried out safety checks of the airport’s flight paths on Thursday to ensure approach procedures were safe and accurate.

Asked how many airlines were expected to use the airport, federal Transport Minister Catherine King declined to put a number on it but said “the more, the better”.

“The reality is, on day one, will it have exactly the same number of flights as Kingsford Smith? No, it won’t. We don’t expect that to occur, but certainly, we’re working pretty hard to get more airlines and more flights,” she said.

Bags move on a carousel at Western Sydney Airport’s terminal.

“We are on the pathway to opening. This testing is actually a critical part of that.”

Qantas and budget offshoot Jetstar have committed to basing 15 domestic aircraft at the airport within a year of its opening, while Singapore Airlines and Air New Zealand have signalled their intent to operate flights there.

However, the curfew-free airport faces stiff competition from the incumbent Sydney Airport at Mascot, which is embarking on its biggest terminal expansion since Sydney hosted the Olympics in 2000.

A NSW Rural Fire Service Boeing 737 air tanker will be the first jet aircraft to touch down at Badgerys Creek next Tuesday. The firebombing 737 will be used to test a full-scale response to a simulated aircraft emergency.

Volunteers will be used to act as passengers in a major test of the airport’s systems in March.

While the new airport is on track for first flights next year, a 23-kilometre metro rail line linking the new terminal to the suburban rail network at St Marys is at risk of opening in December 2027, a year later than planned. A dispute with contractors also threatens to blow out the cost of the rail line by $2.2 billion.