{"id":829473,"date":"2026-07-28T17:12:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T17:12:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/829473\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T17:12:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T17:12:18","slug":"western-sydney-airport-noise-what-residents-heard-on-first-night-of-freight-services","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/829473\/","title":{"rendered":"Western Sydney Airport noise: What residents heard on first night of freight services"},"content":{"rendered":"

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It was 3am on Tuesday when Sharon Robertson was woken by the muffled sound of roaring engines near her home in the Oaks, a semi-rural town in Macarthur, south-west Sydney.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought, \u2018That\u2019s not a truck. That\u2019s an aeroplane,\u2019\u201d said Robertson. She rolled over and opened the flight radar app on her phone, which confirmed the noise: she was experiencing the first night of 24\/7 cargo flights departing and arriving at the new Western Sydney International Airport.<\/p>\n

\"MondayMonday night was the first night of Western Sydney International Airport\u2019s 24-hour freight operation.FlightAware<\/p>\n

The flights began on Monday with the feted launch of TFX6319, a freight plane owned by logistics company Team Global Express that was travelling to Adelaide. Between 9am Monday and 9am Tuesday, 12 flights departed the airport and nine arrived. Flight data shows eight planes took off between 1am and 5am.<\/p>\n

The flights were the first real test of the impact of flight noise for the tens of thousands of residents living in various parts of Sydney \u2013 some of whom had complained or campaigned against the coming changes to flight paths for years. So what was it really like to sleep under Sydney\u2019s first no-curfew flight paths?<\/p>\n

\u201cAt night-time, we don\u2019t have any other noise around us. So we hear everything,\u201d Robertson said. She described the noise of planes travelling south, as they did on Monday night towards Melbourne or Adelaide, as being louder than a truck nearby. Robertson, who is in her 50s, added her latest hearing test showed she had the ability of an 18-year-old.<\/p>\n

But Robertson was not expecting to hear the noise as much as she did: the Oaks is well outside most of the noise maps produced ahead of the airport\u2019s opening and 25 kilometres from the airport as the crow flies.<\/p>\n

\"SharonSharon Robertson, resident of the Oaks, south-west of Sydney, says she was woken at 3am by the planes.Women NSW<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re pretty relaxed in Wollondilly, and it\u2019s like, whatever. But if you don\u2019t say something now [authorities] will think that it\u2019s not affecting anyone \u2026 they will get away with it. If this is going to keep happening, we should get soundproofing.\u201d<\/p>\n

But for others in western Sydney, day one of the cargo flights was uneventful. Luddenham Progress Association president Wayne Willmington said he was expecting the noise to be worse in Luddenham Village, which sits one kilometre from the airport, but was surprised to hear very little.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t woken by any aircraft noise at all last night,\u201d he said. \u201cI think the advantage for the people of Luddenham is we\u2019re beside the runway and we\u2019re not under any of the flight paths.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u2018Tale of two Sydneys\u2019<\/p>\n

The flight paths were authorised in June 2025, when federal Infrastructure and Transport Minister Catherine King stepped out on the newly completed runway and announced a total of five changes<\/a> had been made to help minimise aircraft noise following feedback from the community.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve learnt lessons from other airports, which is why I have imposed a number of additional conditions that will reduce our aircraft noise,\u201d King said at the time.<\/p>\n

On Monday, King said the noise amelioration plan for Western Sydney International Airport is \u201creally state-of-the-art\u201d and that Airservices Australia would continue to monitor the impact on noise in the community.<\/p>\n

Approximately 288 residential and noise-sensitive non-residential buildings, such as schools, childcare centres, health and medical facilities, and places of worship, have been identified as eligible for the noise insulation program.<\/p>\n

\"AA map showing cumulative noise from runways 5 and 23 at the new Western Sydney International. A running washing machine is 70 decibels.Federal Government<\/p>\n

But for many in greater western Sydney, the noise mitigation plan and changes to the flight paths aren\u2019t enough. Federal Member for Lindsay Melissa McIntosh said the federal government had ignored the pleas of the Lindsay community, including suburbs such as Penrith and St Marys, for fairer flight paths and proper support for residents impacted by aircraft noise from the airport. \u201cThey\u2019ve pushed ahead with flight paths that impact Lindsay the most and rolled out a noise insulation program that only includes roughly 250 homes,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

For years, a sign displayed on the Great Western Highway in Glenbrook read \u201cclear blue sky over Blue Mountains\u201d and featured an image of a plane slashed out. That sign still remains, despite planes from the Western Sydney International Airport now being able to fly over the region.<\/p>\n

Blue Mountains City Council Labor Mayor Mark Greenhill has long campaigned for the flight paths to change to avoid impacting the Blue Mountains, the only area in Australia wholly enclosed in a World Heritage National Park. He believes the flight paths show western Sydney is treated differently by policymakers.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t escape the conclusion that there are two Sydneys in the eyes of the policymakers: one Sydney that deserves a curfew \u2026 that deserves to have uninterrupted sleep, and one Sydney that deserves neither,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard for us to conclude that western Sydney and the Blue Mountains aren\u2019t second-class citizens when it comes to aircraft noise, because we are treated differently, and that\u2019s an inescapable conclusion.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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\"AnthonyAnthony Segaert<\/a> is the Parramatta bureau chief at The Sydney Morning Herald. He was previously an urban affairs reporter.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.\"EllieEllie Busby<\/a> is a Parramatta reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.\"MostafaMostafa Rachwani<\/a> is a Parramatta reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald. He was previously the Community Affairs reporter at Guardian Australia.Connect via email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":829474,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99],"class_list":["post-829473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=829473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/829474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=829473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=829473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=829473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}