Western Sydney Airport (WSI) Discussion

[Lynda2475]

I'd imagine they'd rather do noise insulation for people than potentially risk it turning into avalon 2.0.

Almost certainly going to be a dud like Avalon as too far from Sydney (postcode 2000) to be useful for tourists or anyone living in city, north shore, east, inner south or inner west (or even west to Parramatta).

The govt already spent way too much insulating homes under SYD flight path despite those people knowingly choosing to live near SYD. I do not support wasting more tax payer dollars subsidising peoples personal choice of where to live.

I still maintain removing SYD curfew would have been better than a new airport calling itself Sydney which is actually hours from the city of Sydney. SYD has advantage of ocean approach so only some traffic has to fly over homes (which are already noise insulated).

 

[SYD]

Almost certainly going to be a dud like Avalon as too far from Sydney (postcode 2000) to be useful for tourists or anyone living in city, north shore, east, inner south or inner west (or even west to Parramatta).

Already mentioned multiple times, most of the dedicated freight will no doubt move to WSI - which should actually allow for some expansion of SYD.

There will be outbound tourist demand for those who find travelling to SYD equally painful for us going to WSI.

The govt already spent way too much insulating homes under SYD flight path despite those people knowingly choosing to live near SYD. I do not support wasting more tax payer dollars subsidising peoples personal choice of where to live.

That was driven by the building of the parallel runway and implementing the “Bennelong Funnel” (all movements passed over John Howard’s seat of Bennelong but of course Marrickville (and surrounds suffered more).

I still maintain removing SYD curfew would have been better than a new airport calling itself Sydney which is actually hours from the city of Sydney. SYD has advantage of ocean approach so only some traffic has to fly over homes (which are already noise insulated).

Never going to happen.

But moving a chunk of air traffic west will ensure SYD doesn’t close completely anytime soon! (there are many advocating that - probably so their inner West property prices can skyrocket).

 

[dajop]

Yep it will be a failure. The whole western suburbs is full of "deplorables" who would never fly anyway. Who gives a s@)#* about them.

[sarcasm in case not clear]

 

[RooFlyer]

But moving a chunk of air traffic west will ensure SYD doesn’t close completely anytime soon! (there are many advocating that - probably so their inner West property prices can skyrocket).

Yes - I really don’t know what the 100% SYD fans think is going to happen over the next 10, 20 or 30 years without WSI.

I mean, sure, lift the curfew. Then, do you want to catch your flight to Singapore or wherever at 3 am or do you want to travel out to WSI and catch it at 10 am?

 

[MH_fan]

I wouldn't expect SQ to divert any of the current 4 flights into SYD to WSI but it makes sense for them to add a 5th Sydney flight into WSI. As for other international airlines, I wouldn't expect MH to add any flights to WSI but I'd put money on D7 changing from SYD to WSI. I also wonder whether whether SQ will send Scoot to WSI instead of SYD.
As for the Qantas group, I think QF would be reluctant to operate international flights out of WSI except for maybe Bali or Singapore with a 737 but they'd be much more willing to do the international flights via JQ.

 

[justinbrett]

I mean, sure, lift the curfew. Then, do you want to catch your flight to Singapore or wherever at 3 am or do you want to travel out to WSI and catch it at 10 am?

That’s ridiculous. Why would capacity at SYD be less than it is now, particularly for widebody international? Well timed international flights from SYD aren’t going anywhere.

The ship has already sailed on “without WSI”. The question is what moves, if any (ie is it just new growth). Premium widebody international routes will be the least likely to move IMO, as it is in places like LHR.

 

[jase05]

It'd definitely be busy overnight I'd imagine from sheer cargo activity. A lot of those ideally want to arrive late night then depart a few hours later.

Yep, that’s going to be the peak International cargo and domestic freighter period around that time

 

[dairyfloss]

Good opportunity for independent / contract lounge operators like Plaza Premium? I suspect it will be some time before any of the major carriers set-up dedicated lounges of their own, at least for international pax. I can see a smaller QF Club or VA Lounge at Domestic working, though. On the international side, and in time, it could be that alliances or partners band together to do something, depending on success with attracting the needed volume of premium pax numbers.

 

[Quickstatus]

WSI is 62 km from my house and will cost over $23 in road tolls and take more than 1 hour drive from my house. I think I will stick with Syd airport for my flights

Approx the same distance and I estimate time for me
Tolls either way
Either is good for me.
You have to remember lots of people live west of Pennant Hills road

 

[Harrison_133]

Good opportunity for independent / contract lounge operators like Plaza Premium? I suspect it will be some time before any of the major carriers set-up dedicated lounges of their own, at least for international pax. I can see a smaller QF Club or VA Lounge at Domestic working, though. On the international side, and in time, it could be that alliances or partners band together to do something, depending on success with attracting the needed volume of premium pax numbers.

I know of someone who went to one of the community open days for WSI and they were told that the only airline lounges in the terminal will be common user.

I can't find anything online to verify that, so take it with a grain of salt I guess.

 

[elanshin]

Approx the same distance and I estimate time for me
Tolls either way
Either is good for me.
You have to remember lots of people live west of Pennant Hills road

Also it could be that even dropping off at St Mary's might work out ok if the station is upgraded properly and metro zooms over.

 

[SeatBackForward]

The update about SQ also hinted that Qantas and Jetstar will initially be using WSI for domestic flights. This was new news I think as previously we didn't know what type of mix they'd offer.

 

[elanshin]

The update about SQ also hinted that Qantas and Jetstar will initially be using WSI for domestic flights. This was new news I think as previously we didn't know what type of mix they'd offer.

I wouldn't be surprised that QF Group isn't committing anything right now besides domestic. Heck they won't even know what their fleet and network will look like in 2026 assuming WSI opens on time.

Will the sunrise a350 have come in? Will 321XLRs be in? Will they have their 380s all running?

Their intl ops probably is just too much in the air to commit anything. But if I were to guess, we'd likely see JQi be shifted to WSI.

 

[justinbrett]

Considering how much of QFi is SYD centric, I can’t see them expanding to WSI when even MEL & BNE are lucky to get services.

Maybe AKL but that would be about it.

 

[Saab34]

Connectivity is an interesting point, Jetstar does have a bit of connecting traffic with its International network, be it QF or JQ, and some foreign players. They won’t really have that many connections if they move all International traffic to WSI, well not initially anyway.

AirAsia I can see. Scoot would have announced with SQ I would have though, perhaps not.

Cebu, Tway etc would be a no brainer also. The lure for WSI seems to be the ability to depart at 12/1am, might interest MH.

 

[elanshin]

I don't think anyone is really considering connectivity from day 1. Rather this is a point to point Sydney airport that can operate at all hours and serves the demographics of Western Sydney. Like no-one is flying into London Stansted expecting to then connect onto another flight.

 

[jase05]

I don't think anyone is really considering connectivity from day 1. Rather this is a point to point Sydney airport that can operate at all hours and serves the demographics of Western Sydney. Like no-one is flying into London Stansted expecting to then connect onto another flight.

Absolutely. Hopefully for those of us not living in Sydney though one day it gives us on option of a decent transfer between domestic and International rather then the current unsatisfactory setup at SYD

 

[p--and--t]

I was going to say "cue the crowd who say this doesn't suit me", but you beat me to it.

Yes, yes, yes it won't suit lots of people, but there's a population of people about (or perhaps even greater than) the size of ADL, that are closer to WSI than SYD, and it might suit them!

Another article I saw said the catchment for WSI is 3M. Larger than majority of airports in AU.

No airport suits everyone.

 

[SeatBackForward]

You have to remember lots of people live west of Pennant Hills road

I pretty much live down that middle line. Once the M12 motorway connects to the airport, both SYD and WSI will be pretty much the same time wise. Would still prefer if there were easier public transport options that reduce the chances of traffic delays.

 

[Lynda2475]

Yes - I really don’t know what the 100% SYD fans think is going to happen over the next 10, 20 or 30 years without WSI.

Well SYD could be expanded HKG style to have another runway floating in Botany Bay or second Sydney airport could have actually be built in Sydney.

I actually think it would be quicker to get to Newcastle on train than WSI from Central, as the central coast & hunter trains are generally express. Newcastle as the choice would also have other benefits as at least its gateway to the Hunter (a tourist attraction), nothing for international guests to do near WSI.

I mean, sure, lift the curfew. Then, do you want to catch your flight to Singapore or wherever at 3 am or do you want to travel out to WSI and catch it at 10 am?

Well at 3am I can be at SYD in Uber/Taxi 12 minutes (no traffic) for $25. Where as at 3am there is no PT available to WSI (and Uber would be over $200 negating any savings in airfares).

NSW trains/metro dont run 24 hours a day. Given the request is to be at airport 2 hours (3 hours if destination is the USA) before an international flight; even for a flight departing at 7am from WSI there is no way to PT from city of Sydney to WSI (trains dont start until 5am).

WSI may work for freight, but it is never going to be the main gateway for tourists or business travelers into NSW.