Air New Zealand has become the first international passenger airline to touch down at Sydney’s new airport.<\/p>\n
Flight NZ-165 from Auckland landed at Western Sydney International Airport at 7.28am on Monday morning, and left an hour and a half later.<\/p>\n
Air New Zealand Captain Andrew McGuigan, who commanded the inaugural flight, said it wasn’t every day that you get to be in charge of the first international flight to land at a brand-new airport.<\/p>\n
“There was a real sense of excitement onboard as we made our approach into Western Sydney. It was a special moment for our crew and customers, but also for the many people on both sides of the Tasman who have spent months getting us ready for today.”<\/p>\n
The airline said the landing marked the start of a new service.<\/p>\n
Air New Zealand will fly between Auckland and Western Sydney on Monday, Wednesday and Friday until the end of March 2027.<\/p>\n
From April 2027, the three return services will run on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.<\/p>\n
“More than 75 different teams across Air New Zealand and many partners have played a part in getting ready for today,” Air New Zealand chief operations officer Kate Boyer said.<\/p>\n
“From pilots and airport teams to engineering, digital, security, baggage, customer experience and operations, almost every part of the airline has been involved.”<\/p>\n
The airport is in Luddenham, about 45 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district.<\/p>\n
Local residents have strongly opposed the decision to operate it as a 24-hour, curfew-free airport.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Air New Zealand has become the first international passenger airline to touch down at Sydney’s new airport. Flight…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":641476,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-641475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=641475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/641476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=641475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=641475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=641475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}