Western Sydney International Airport welcomes its first international passenger flight on Monday, 26 October, when an Air New Zealand service arrives from Auckland. The flight lands at 7.45am local time, one day after Jetstar operated the airport’s first domestic passenger service, to the Gold Coast on Sunday.

The first week’s schedule

Air New Zealand will fly the Auckland route three times a week, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, using Airbus A320 or A321 aircraft, departing Western Sydney at 8.55am and arriving in Auckland at 2.10pm. Jetstar starts with 21 flights a week: 14 to Melbourne, four to the Gold Coast and three to Brisbane. Singapore Airlines begins daily services from Changi on 23 November, while Qatar Airways has announced flights from Doha from December 2027 and Vietjet from Ho Chi Minh City from January 2027.

A second Sydney airport, at last

The airport at Badgerys Creek, about 45km west of central Sydney, will operate around the clock, beyond the curfew that constrains Sydney’s existing airport. It opened for regular freight services on 27 July 2026, and passenger services now give Western Sydney’s more than 2.5 million residents — including a large New Zealand-born community — a much shorter airport journey than the trek to Mascot.

What comes next

The launch operation is much smaller than the long-term vision, which once foresaw up to 15 Qantas Group aircraft based at the airport in its first year. For now, the test is whether a handful of routes can prove demand in the west — and whether Singapore Airlines’ November start turns a promising opening week into a real second gateway.