Western Sydney International (Nancy Bird Walton) Airport (WSI) has begun commercial operations with its first freight flights, ahead of passenger services starting on 25 October 2026.
Qantas operated the first commercial freight flight at WSI on Sunday, with service QF7340 departing for Brisbane at 10.25pm carrying Australia Post parcels, officially opening the new 24/7 cargo terminal.
Domestic freight services will operate to and from WSI to Melbourne, Cairns, Adelaide, Brisbane, Gold Coast and Perth, along with onward flights to regional centres, processing more than 850 tonnes of freight a week. International flights are expected to begin early next year.
The WSI launch comes as Qantas and Australia Post extend their 100-year air freight partnership by a further 10 years.
Ready to go… almost
The litmus test for the airport, however, begins next week when Australia’s new 24/7 hub starts a trial program to test the facility’s readiness for passenger flights in late October.
Starting 4 August, and continuing twice a week until 7 October, the trials will see registered volunteers take part in a simulated day of airport operations.
According to WSI, participants will “move through the terminal just like a real passenger would to help us test processes, technology and passenger flows”.
Each trial will run from 8.30am to 3.30pm, and volunteers will experience every step of the airport journey (minus boarding, of course), including check‑in, security screening and moving through the departures and arrivals areas.
With the original allocation for participants exhausted, the hub has added more places for each test day.
The airport told Karryon the response to the trial had been “amazing”, with “enormous community interest in it.”
“They were oversubscribed [by] 1000s,” WSI said of the tests, which are about “really putting it through its paces via challenging scenarios”.
The first passenger flights launch on 25 October, when Jetstar’s sold-out inaugural flight JQ362 takes off from Western Sydney bound for the Gold Coast.
But as passenger flights draw closer, other airlines are showing interest in the hub too. One such carrier is the Maldives’ national airline, Maldivian, which is said to be targeting Western Sydney International for its first New South Wales route. Read more about that here.
Check out our guide to all you need to know about Australia’s newest airport, starting with who’s confirmed to fly and where passengers can go.
KARRYON UNPACKS: Freight first, passengers next: WSI is now live, and the countdown that matters for the trade is 25 October 2026, when Jetstar opens the terminal to fliers with an already sold-out Gold Coast service. For travel advisors selling out of Sydney, a second 24-hour airport reshapes how Western Sydney clients reach both domestic and, eventually, international networks.
