Flight path changes for Western Sydney Airport revealed
The flight paths for Sydney's new international airport have been authorised, revealing a range of changes aiming to spare some of western Sydney's more populated areas from overnight noise.
The Blue Mountains and Wallacia will benefit from changes made to the flight paths for Western Sydney International Airport, unveiled by federal Infrastructure and Transport Minister Catherine King on Wednesday.
Stepping out on the newly completed 3.7-kilometre runway to announce the authorisation of the paths, on a freezing cold morning in Sydney's west, King called it a 'crucial step' to opening the airport in late 2026.
The flights paths were first revealed in 2023, with a final Environmental Impact Statement released in November 2024. Following feedback from the community, King said a total of five changes were made to help minimise aircraft noise, four of which relate to night-time operations.
'We've learnt lessons from other airports, which is why I have imposed a number of additional conditions that will reduce our aircraft noise,' King said.
'Most notably, I'll be issuing a ministerial direction to Airservices Australia … to make reciprocal runway operations the default operating mode at night, including the use of a specific noise abatement procedure, when both are safe to do so.'
Reciprocal runway operations, or RRO, is a flight path design where planes take off and land from the same direction, but at the opposite end of the runway.
When RRO mode is in use and when traffic permits, jet aircraft departing to destinations in the north, north-west and west would be kept on runway heading – travelling in the same direction of the runway – longer, until clear of Silverdale, before being processed by air traffic control to their destinations.
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