Sydney has a second international airport. Western Sydney International at Badgerys Creek welcomed its first passengers, with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese calling it the country's first major new airport in more than 50 years. The AU$5.6 billion ($3.94 billion) project took 15 years of planning and a seven-year build, finishing in mid-2025 before cargo flights started in July and passenger services launched this week.

The headline detail for travellers: the new airport operates 24 hours a day. Sydney's existing airport, closer to the city centre, has a strict curfew — no takeoffs or landings between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. — which has long limited scheduling compared with cities like Melbourne. Round-the-clock operations give airlines far more flexibility, which historically tends to mean more routes, more red-eyes and often cheaper fares as competition increases.

The location is a deliberate shift too. Badgerys Creek sits about 60 kilometres west of central Sydney, right in the heart of one of Australia's fastest-growing and most multicultural population centres. For locals in Penrith, Parramatta and beyond, it's a far shorter drive than trekking to Mascot. The site itself is huge — 1,780 hectares bought by the federal government back in the 1980s — and the airport has been built with room to grow, with capacity for more than 80 million passenger movements a year.

The first outbound departure went to Jetstar, Qantas' budget arm, flying to the Gold Coast — a fitting start for a facility that should boost low-cost and overnight flying. Jetstar was due to operate the inaugural service on opening day.

Why should a visitor to Australia care? More airport capacity in Sydney usually means more competition on domestic and international routes, and 24-hour operations open the door to flights that simply couldn't land before — late arrivals from Asia, early departures to domestic hubs. It may take a year or two for schedules to bed in, but if you're flying into Sydney's west or connecting onward to the Gold Coast or Melbourne, this airport is about to become part of the equation. Check which airport your fare actually uses before booking; the two are roughly an hour apart by road, and ground transport links between them are still developing.

Daily Sabah Travel (Reuters)