Which airlines will fly to the new Western Sydney airport?

Sydney is now less than 18 months away from the opening of the new $5.3 billion Western Sydney International (WSI) airport, located 44km from the city's CBD but with some three million people living within an hour’s travel to the modern terminal.

“This makes us the third largest catchment area in Australia,” WSI chief executive Simon Hickey has told Executive Traveller.

“You’ve got Sydney, then Melbourne, and then Western Sydney,” which he also cites as “the third largest economy in Australia... and one of the fastest-growing populations in Australia, a younger population with lots of businesses, a really ambitious population who are great travellers.” 

The new Western Sydney Airport will open towards the end of 2026.

Western Sydney International will also host flights around the clock, without the overnight curfew of its big city sibling.

“Most airports in Australia are 24x7 airports, and that’s going to be a great economic boost for Sydney,” Hickey has said.

“Twenty-four-seven gives us an edge. It means that we’ll be able to connect through major hub banks of international airports; it means that people can get onwards on their journey; it means they have more options than otherwise.”

WSI's single terminal will host both domestic and international flights.

WSI’s single terminal and runway will be able to handle 10 million passengers per year.

The terminal features several ‘swing gates’ which can switch between domestic and international flights, while the greenfields airport has room to grow to “four terminals in a mirror configuration with two runways” catering for up to 82 million passengers annually.

So which airlines will be flying into and out of the new Western Sydney airport?

Qantas will see the first departure, with five red-tailed jets to be based at Western Sydney and assigned to domestic routes.

The airline has confirmed to Executive Traveller that those flights will begin with the QantasLink Embraer E190 regional jet, and it’s possible that the mid-sized Airbus A220 could follow.

Qantas Group CEO Vanessa Hudson has previously describing the nimbly efficient Airbus A220 jet as as “a perfect aircraft for Western Sydney.”

Qantas CEO Vanessa Hudson has suggested the Airbus A220 will be an ideal jet for WSI.

In addition, Jetstar will field ten single-aisle jets from its Airbus A320 family.

Although initial routes are yet to be revealed, “I expect you will see triangle operations” from Western Sydney to Melbourne and Brisbane, Hudson has tipped.

This would be a boon for residents of western Sydney, who could recover as much as two hours on a same-day trip – which means getting home in time for dinner with the family and to tuck the kids into bed.

WSI will run on a 24x7 basis, and believes the lack of curfew will be a clear advantage over SYD.

Virgin Australia has yet to share its own plans for Western Sydney airport, although it’s hard to imagine the challenger will leave its rivals to enjoy a monopoly.

Singapore Airlines will be the first airline with international flights, linking Western Sydney to Singapore and beyond.

“WSI’s late-night departure capacity will allow business travellers for instance to finish a full day’s work in Sydney, take an overnight flight and arrive in Singapore before their first morning meeting,” says airport boss Hickey.

Singapore Airlines will have the first overseas flights from Western Sydney.

That said, if Singapore Airlines has say an 11pm departure from Western Sydney, this would see the flight reaching Changi around 4am – so passengers would really want to book their hotel accommodation from the night before, rather than roll the dice on being granted a very early check-in.

Up next will be Air New Zealand, which intends to begin flights to Auckland in mid-2027 with financial assistance from the NSW state government's $16 million Take-Off Fund.

Hickey and his team at WSI are busily courting more international airlines.

Philippine Airlines, Cebu Pacific and Vietnam Airlines have also been tipped  WSI, catering for the demographics of the airport’s catchment area.

Philippine Airlines or its low-cost rival Cebu Pacific could be a good fit for WSI.

Destination NSW’s Country Manager for India, Samar Chokshi, has recently shared that “discussions are on with Air India and IndiGo to operate direct flights to this airport once they get new aircraft.”

The airport’s curfew-free status could also have strong appeal to Gulf carriers such as Emirates and Qatar Airways, which often find a very late-night or early morning departure slots well into the first wave of connections from their Middle Eastern hubs onto Europe and the UK.

The airport will be served by a new Metro line.

Turkish Airlines, which will be permitted to run a total of 35 flights per week between Australia and Istanbul by late 2025, could also find its way onto the WSI tarmac.

However, the fact that WSI shares the same ‘capital city’ airport designation as SYD – rather than being rated as a secondary airport – will hamper some international airlines in expand their footprint from Sydney to the west, due to restrictions on how many flights airlines can bring to the city.

The new Courtyard by Marriott Western Sydney Airport hotel.

Several airport hotels will also arise within the airport-adjacent business park and the new suburb of Bradfield, both of which will be linked to the airport and beyond by a Sydney Metro railway line.

This includes the 200-room Courtyard by Marriott Western Sydney Airport hotel, and a second as-yet-unbranded property of ten floors and 154 rooms.