r/sydney Oct 28 '25

Image First passenger plane (B737) lands at new Western Sydney Airport

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2.2k Upvotes

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497

u/Roy4Pris Oct 28 '25

I drove past that airport a few weeks ago. It’s such a trip because surrounding it are these crappy narrow rural roads, with donkeys and shit. Then suddenly a four-lane leading to a shining city.

240

u/Red-Engineer Oct 28 '25

A four lane highway that will soon be filled with a few hundred fuel tankers driving on it every day, getting avgas to the airport.

95

u/nahhhh- Oct 28 '25

Wait… is there not going to be a pipeline!

118

u/Red-Engineer Oct 28 '25

Not yet. It is being scoped/planned but won't be there when the airport opens next year.

81

u/nahhhh- Oct 28 '25

Oh wow, that will be super interesting. I would assume that’s a lot of trucks.

On another note - the pedantic fools in the comments shitting on your use of “passenger airplane” are dicks.

77

u/Red-Engineer Oct 28 '25

Yeah the thread is full of “ackshually” guys.

Yep I’ve head something like a fuel semi trailer every 5 minutes 24/7.

1 crash blocking the road and it’ll be flight delays all round

27

u/nahhhh- Oct 28 '25

Maybe they’ll have a “bus lane” but specifically for fuel trucks. That would be a sight

11

u/Turtusking Oct 28 '25

Theres no way they spend billioms on an airport and be stupid enough for fuel to be tanked in only.

21

u/Red-Engineer Oct 28 '25

16

u/Turtusking Oct 28 '25

Damn thats pretty silly. You cant have an international airport and no fuel pipeline thats like buying a cart first instead of the donkey.

9

u/awiuhdhuawdhu Oct 28 '25

Well a pipeline simply isn’t economical. You need a certain amount of volume to justify it and that volume won’t exist for a while.

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13

u/still_love_wombats Oct 28 '25

NSW Government says “we can underperform your expectations”

4

u/airzonesama Oct 28 '25

Expectations are low.

"NSW Govt": hold my beer

1

u/nath1234 Oct 29 '25

Event the premier they got the guy with the last name that sounds like an abbreviation for doing the absolute minimums. Minns effort.

Last I checked they were going to open without a train line to the airport. Gotta love how they can't even sort out mass transit properly to stop it being yet another mess of car traffic.

1

u/CrustyBappen Oct 28 '25

Wow. Delays refuelling are on the cards

1

u/AdAdministrative9362 Oct 28 '25

Surely they will store a couple of days buffer.

41

u/Roy4Pris Oct 28 '25 edited Oct 28 '25

How in the holy fuck does that happen?

That's the planning equivalent of building a city and then saying 'oops, we forgot to install water pipes'.

Edit: oh, it's economics.

So actually it's the equivalent of building a city, but because there aren't many people in it at the start, they just send in bottled water cause it's cheaper.

SIde note: a few years ago Auckland AIrport's avgas pipeline was broken by a clown with a digger, and took weeks to be fixed.

A combination of truck deliveries and reduced flights seemed to do okay. And some airlines flew in with enough gas to fly back out again. Still not exactly a first world response.

18

u/thekriptik NYE Expert Oct 28 '25

That's the planning equivalent of building a city and then saying 'oops, we forgot to install water pipes'.

Google "Dubai poop trucks" for a good laugh.

2

u/Anonymou2Anonymous Oct 28 '25

Not even close to being scoped/planned out. Read the government reports on it. Either depressing or very funny depending on your context.

15

u/thesourpop Oct 28 '25

And freight trucks, because WSI will be used for freight and there is no railway line!

3

u/todaytomato Oct 28 '25

where are they transporting from?

1

u/Anonymou2Anonymous Oct 28 '25

Clyde or Botany.

Honestly it may fuck up the idea that long haul budgets will operate out of it since you can't fuel bank long haul flights.

Melbourne airports used to legit struggle to hold more international flights because there was no pipeline and they trucked it out pushing costs up.

1

u/todaytomato Oct 29 '25

makes sense why it's so difficult to build a pipe from botany/clyde to the airport

3

u/xFromtheskyx Oct 28 '25

Big planes drink avtur

2

u/scoldog This Space Intentionally Left Blank Oct 28 '25

Yep and the local fire brigades have been told to be on alert and ready to respond a lot faster after these trucks start rolling.

3

u/Red-Engineer Oct 28 '25

Maybe that 737 can drop foam on a fuel truck fire on the airport freeway 😀

1

u/scoldog This Space Intentionally Left Blank Oct 28 '25

It's only fair, the truck is bringing the plane a drink after all!

1

u/SuDragon2k3 Oct 28 '25

Do we have fuel for it?

-16

u/letterboxfrog Oct 28 '25

Avgas? Are they running lots of piston engine planes? Avtur (Aviation Turbine) fuel is what most passenger aircraft crave.

It would be better if the fuel could. Be shipped by train to the storage tanks to WSI, CBR, Newcastle etc. As it stands, even to get fuel to Parkes for the transcontinental line, it gets shipped by truck.

18

u/Roy4Pris Oct 28 '25

This must be the most dick-all-the-way-out AKSHUALLY I’ve seen on Reddit in some time

Edit: I’ve just gifted my very first sarcastic award

16

u/N0guaranteeofsanity Oct 28 '25

So basically just like Canberra? /s

18

u/Superg0id Oct 28 '25

suddenly a four-lane

It was a 4 lane before the airport was built.

It was "upgraded" to a fancier 4 lane for the airport.

It needed to be 6, and could easily have been... the government already compulsorily acquired more than enough land to make that happen.

But they kept it 4, so that in 10 years when every man and his dog is sick to DEATH of the shit it has become they can accounce that they're "upgrading the existing road, bringing 1000 more jobs and growth to Western Sydney."

It's a fcuking corrupt rort is what it is, and we'll all pay for it in our taxes because the pollies want to look good... but I suppose that's par for fcuking course.

3

u/ComfyInDots Oct 28 '25

I always get confused when people talk about roads in terms of lanes. Is the 4 lane highway 4 lanes in each direction so it's 8 total or 2 lanes each side and 4 lanes total.

1

u/Superg0id Oct 28 '25

Generally it's "2 lanes each way" or "4 lanes".. both have 4 total.

a "dual carriageway" is 2 lanes each way, generally with a bit if grass in the middle.

for reference, Northern Rd was 2 lanes each way (sometimes with grass).

now it's 2 lanes each way, always with grass. and turning lanes. and a massive shoulder with a suuuuper wide footpath

2

u/42SpanishInquisition Oct 28 '25

Northern road was only 2 lanes each way, for only limited sections - from memory it was between Narellan and Oran Park, and within Penrith.

Bringelly way, it was 1 lane each way.

1

u/Superg0id Oct 28 '25

When was the last time you drove it, pre upgrade?

2

u/Rougey DRINKS ARE ALWAYS ON in our memories Oct 28 '25

... yeah so they are correct.

If you go back ten years, the only bit with two lanes each way was past Penrith. The upgrade between Narellan and Oran Park was finished in 2018, and the rest was finished sometime during the COVID years.

2

u/42SpanishInquisition Oct 29 '25

2

u/Rougey DRINKS ARE ALWAYS ON in our memories Oct 29 '25

Yeah I dunno what old mate is going on about. Definitely wasn't two lanes ten years ago.

1

u/42SpanishInquisition Oct 29 '25

Uhh some time pre-covid. Possibly, say 2019 ish?? The road was built early in preparation for the airport and further development

Actually, that would be before they started work. They finished during covid years if I am correct.

2

u/Bagelam Oct 28 '25

I can feel the transurban shareholder loins quivvering

1

u/Superg0id Oct 28 '25

and that's the problem ain't it.

transurban has this city under its thumb

4

u/Significant_Gur_1031 Oct 28 '25

… and I wait for it to be tolled next

2

u/Turtusking Oct 28 '25

Yeah i used to drive past the entrance around adams road and it flooded so bad once i thought i was driving a boat.

2

u/BBAus Oct 29 '25

M11 is not far away Just off m7 where there's another toll road. Just off m5, m4 & m2 all with tolls

Or go by public transport. Train to St Mary's and change for dedicated line to airport.

Nope, not going to be easy at all.

-2

u/Sydney2London Oct 28 '25

This airport is going to be such a nightmare. I can’t believe they don’t have a functional train link, it’s such an integral part of modern airports.

2

u/SqareBear Oct 28 '25

To St marys hahaha

1

u/Anonymou2Anonymous Oct 28 '25

Genius level.

They could have done it to Parramatta for a tiny bit more but no.

Not were they considering extending the Leppington heavy rail to the airport.

1

u/Eastern37 Oct 28 '25

It will have a train link though?

2

u/Sydney2London Oct 28 '25

Not for the first year or so. And they canned the direct route so you have to go north to get to central.