Engaging communities ahead of Western Sydney Airport’s opening
At a glance
The introduction of a new international airport brings opportunities to the region but also raised concerns from communities. For residents in western Sydney and the Blue Mountains, the primary concern centred around aircraft noise impacts, flight path locations, and the frequency and timing of aircraft movements. Airservices Australia (Airservices) committed to early and ongoing engagement to ensure communities had access to clear information and opportunities to understand and discuss the airspace changes ahead of the opening of Western Sydney International (Nancy-Bird Walton) Airport (WSI), a major infrastructure project set to service up to 10 million passengers annually from its opening in 2026.
The challenge
The flight paths as presented in the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) was authorised by the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government in June 2025. At this point Airservices took on responsibilities for detailed design and implementation of the flight paths for the new airport, marking one of the most significant airspace transformations in Australia’s aviation history.
Airservices needed to conduct extensive community engagement to gather feedback and create awareness about flight paths, noise abatement procedures and noise monitoring arrangements to help communities understand airport operations and expected impacts. Throughout the project, engagement focused on transparency, consistency and building trust.
Our response
GHD supported Airservices to deliver a comprehensive program based on two pillars: an awareness raising advertising campaign and a series of community engagement sessions. To meet Airservices’ engagement needs, GHD worked with local councils, markets, shopping centres, and train and metro stations to coordinate logistics for over 99 engagement activities across the detailed design and implementation phases, throughout 2025-26. The team also attended all in-person sessions with Airservices, representatives of Western Sydney Airport Corporation (WSA Co) and the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts (the Department).
The awareness campaign used a mix of traditional and digital advertising, with content focused on informing communities about the approved flight paths, information on altitudes, modelled noise levels and projected flight path usage frequency. Information materials included factsheets, Frequently Asked Questions, videos, information banners and the Aircraft Overflight Noise Tool developed by the Department, as part of their EIS consultation.
The engagement logistics included booking venues, managing session scheduling, location planning, event promotion and team resourcing coordination to ensure smooth program delivery.
A key highlight of the engagement included developing two noise experience videos to support the drop-in sessions to give participants a better understanding of noise levels, monitoring and abatement. Participants could listen to indicative aircraft noise at 60dB(A) and 70dB(A) in two different scenarios: a backyard ambient noise level of 40dB(A) and a main street ambient noise level of 50dB(A). A further animation was developed to help explain the new airport’s runway operations.
The impact
The awareness campaign reached large audiences across traditional and digital channels across both phases, generating nearly 3 million newspaper impressions, more than 2.4 million social media impressions, and more than 255,000 website visits in total. It also supported broad community outreach through more than 2.2 million delivered newsletters and flyers.
The detailed design and implementation engagement program over two years comprised of 61 information sessions, five online webinars and 33 ‘flying squads’ handing out project information at train and metro stations. The in-person engagement sessions reached more than 2,000 people. Feedback collected through sessions, exit surveys, and written correspondence indicated that participants gained a clearer understanding of the WSI flight paths.
Key topics of interest to community members across 2025 and 2026, included aircraft noise levels, runway modes of operation and their associated flight paths, timing of flights including overnight operations, noise abatement procedures and the noise monitoring program.
Airservices will conduct a Post Implementation Review within two years of operations to evaluate the flight paths’ effectiveness and consider refinements based on operational data and community feedback.