Second Sydney Airport

The Second Sydney Airport is an ongoing proposition for another airport to supplement or replace the existing Kingsford Smith Airport in Sydney, Australia. With an estimated cost of between $6 and $8 billion, governments, debating the issue since the 1940s, are yet to pursue anything beyond preliminary investigations and precautionary land acquisition. The current designated site for the second Sydney airport is the Western Sydney Airport at Badgerys Creek.

Since the construction of Kingsford Smith, aviation in Sydney has grown significantly. Between 1985 and 2015 total passenger movements through Sydney more than quadrupled from 9.2 million to 39.8 million. In 2015, 21% of all scheduled flights in Australia landed or took off at Kingsford Smith. The airport dealt with 45% of international passengers in 1998.

The Federal government made preliminary investigations and purchased land near Badgerys Creek in the 1980s and early 1990s. In May 2013, the Gillard Government released a technical study into the feasibility of Wilton as an airport site. By the time of the 2013 election, the Australian Labor Party had expressed support for the concept of a second airport, but did not support any particular site, whereas the then-Opposition Coalition was split on the issue, with some ministerial support for an airport at Badgerys Creek site while the then-Opposition Leader Tony Abbott had not committed to constructing an airport at all. The second airport was also opposed by the state government of New South Wales, which instead favoured increasing capacity at Kingsford Smith and building a high-speed rail connection between Sydney and Canberra Airport, although doubt had been cast on the viability of the latter option by a study in 2012. After a further study, on 15 April 2014 the Federal government confirmed that the second Sydney airport will be built at Badgerys Creek, as the Western Sydney Airport. In May 2017 the Federal Government announced it would build (pay for) the second Sydney Airport, after the Sydney Airport Group declined the Government's offer to build the second airport, and announced an investment of $5.3 billion in the project over four years in the 2017-18 Budget.

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