Western Sydney Airport opens for scheduled passenger services on 25 October 2026. This series looks at 25 milestones on the road to its opening, with a new milestone added each day.
Want to make a comment? Click here to go to this series of posts on LinkedIn.
Milestone 1: Abbott Government announces decision to proceed to build a new airport for Western Sydney at Badgerys Creek
The first milestone came in April 2014 when the Liberal National Government of Tony Abbott took a decision that previous governments had put off for more than thirty years: to proceed to build a new airport for Western Sydney at Badgerys Creek. The decision was announced in a media release by Prime Minister Abbott on 15 April 2014.
Milestone 2: Issue of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement and Airport Plan
The second milestone was in October 2015: the Turnbull Government released the draft Environmental Impact Statement and draft Airport Plan for Western Sydney Airport for public comment. The draft EIS ran to some 5,000 pages; it would attract several thousand submissions. This was all part of the detailed legal and planning work necessary before construction of the airport could start.
