The South-East Sector project is preparing the airport for increased demand and passenger growth, delivering two new taxiways, extending an existing taxiway and constructing six new aircraft parking bays in the airport’s south-east sector near the Air Traffic Control Tower and Blu Emu Carpark.

The project, which was originally approved by the Australian Government in 2019, is a $169 million investment to meet forecast aviation demand in 2029. We expect the project will be complete in 2025.

Impact on operations

Due to the proximity of the worksite to the main north-south runway, the use of that runway will at times be unavoidably affected between 11pm and 6am to ensure the safety of workers on the site and aircraft.

This means:

1. The limited number of overnight freight flights allowed to operate during the curfew and Air Ambulance aircraft will instead land and take-off from the parallel north-south runway (also known as the third runway). They will take off to and land from the south over Botany Bay.

2. Temporarily using this runway means people living in Kurnell, La Perouse, Phillip Bay, Little Bay and Botany may hear aircraft noise between 11pm and 6am. We expect this will occur for up to 38 nights until 31 March 2024.

3. Essential maintenance work will also be undertaken on these nights. This includes airfield ground lighting upgrade projects, rubber removal and asphalt surface maintenance and repair (including line marking). This work can only be undertaken during the curfew.

We expect that, from 1 April 2024, the number of nights when the parallel north-south runway will need to be used between 11pm and 6am will drop to around 12 every three-month period for the foreseeable future.

Change of flight paths

More information on the expected change for each of Sydney Airport’s 16 flight paths can be downloaded here.

This compares the average daily number of flights for each flight path before the project started in August 2019 and compares that with the expected number of flights in July 2024 both with and without the project.

Vital ongoing maintenance to the runway

Sydney Airport continuously carriers out vital maintenance to its runway and associated taxiways.

This means the limited number of overnight freight and other aircraft that can operate during these times will instead use the parallel north-south runway.

On average, there are currently between 11 and 18 such flights per night, half of which are departures and half arrivals.

Frequently asked questions

A list of frequently asked questions on the South-East Sector project can be viewed or downloaded here.