Western Sydney Airport Opens as Jetstar JQ362 Flies Its First Passengers to the Gold Coast

Western Sydney International (Nancy-Bird Walton) Airport opened to passengers on Sunday, October 25, 2026, when Jetstar flight JQ362 took off for the Gold Coast just before 11:30 a.m. local time, ABC News reported. The flight was sold out.

It is the first passenger service from a major new Australian airport in more than 50 years. Sydney has been arguing about where to put a second airport since at least 1946.

Opening day at Badgerys Creek

Check-in opened at 8 a.m., and the departure left a little under half an hour after its published 11 a.m. slot. Jetstar’s announcement in June had set JQ362 as the first flight and named the Airbus A320 as the type for all of its Western Sydney routes.

The return, JQ363 from the Gold Coast, was due to land back at the new airport at 3 p.m. The first departure to Melbourne was scheduled for 6 p.m., ABC News reported.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and federal transport minister Catherine King spoke at the opening. “This is not just Sydney’s second airport,” Albanese said, calling it Australia’s best.

Airport CEO Simon Hickey called the day “a generational change to aviation.” The airport has carried freight since July, when Qantas Freight began regular services from its cargo precinct.

Who flies from Western Sydney, and when

Jetstar opened the airport, and Australia’s transport department lists the rest of the launch line-up. The first two international airlines follow within a month.

Airline	Starts	Route and frequency	Aircraft
Jetstar	October 25, 2026	Melbourne (up to 14 a week), Gold Coast (4 a week), Brisbane (3 a week)	Airbus A320
Air New Zealand	October 26, 2026	Auckland (3 a week)	Airbus A320 and A321
Singapore Airlines	November 23, 2026	Singapore Changi (daily, SQ201/SQ202)	Airbus A350-900
QantasLink	March 28, 2027	Melbourne and Brisbane (4 a week each)	Embraer E190

Air New Zealand’s Auckland flights start on Monday and run on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, the minister’s office said. Singapore Airlines says its A350-900s will carry 303 passengers, 40 of them in business class, and the route takes it to five daily flights to Sydney.

More airlines are signed for later years. Qatar Airways, for one, will fly from Doha from December 2027.

Why a second Sydney airport took 80 years

Towra Point in Botany Bay was floated as a second airport site in 1946 and ruled out in 1969. Galston was picked and dropped in the 1970s, and Badgerys Creek was chosen in 1986, when the government began buying the land.

Even then, nothing was built. The site was only confirmed in 2014, and construction began in 2018 on a single 12,139-foot (3,700 m) runway and one terminal for domestic and international flights.

That first stage is sized for about 10 million passengers a year, which Hickey compared to Adelaide Airport. He expects to approach that figure in the early to mid 2030s.

With more terminals and a second runway, the airport could reach 82 million passengers a year by the 2060s. London Heathrow handled just over 84 million in 2025, ABC News noted.

What a curfew-free airport changes

The new airport sits about 28 miles (45 km) west of Sydney’s city center and has no curfew. Sydney Kingsford Smith bans most aircraft operations between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m., according to Australia’s transport department.

Night movements at Western Sydney start on a set date, though. The government named November 1, 2026 as the intended date for it to open for night flights under the Sydney Airport Curfew Act 1995.

From then, the freight flights now allowed into Kingsford Smith during its curfew lose that permission, except in emergencies or with a special dispensation. Overnight freight is meant to move west.

Passengers feel the change first on long-haul timetables. Singapore Airlines’ SQ202 is scheduled to leave Western Sydney at 11:55 p.m., a slot inside Kingsford Smith’s curfew. The airline says that late departure is what makes its onward connections through Changi work.

The airport is also still missing its rail link. The government describes the Sydney Metro airport line as a future connection, so opening-week passengers reach the terminal by road.