50-year first: Jetstar touches down as Western Sydney Airport faces final stress tests

Australia hasn't built a major capital city international airport from scratch since Melbourne's Tullamarine opened in 1970. Now, history is repeating itself in Western Sydney - and the countdown to take-off is officially on.

With the airport's first test flight safely on the tarmac and hundreds of volunteer passengers putting the terminal through its paces, Sydney's newest aviation gateway is undergoing its final dress rehearsals ahead of commercial launch on October 25.

A Jetstar A320 made history when it touched down at Western Sydney International (Nancy-Bird Walton) Airport as part of the airport's operational readiness program on September 1.

Hundreds of volunteers were recruited to help test all stages of the terminal customer journey, from drop-off to check-in, security screening, departures, arrivals and baggage reclaim.

WSI chief operating officer Matt Duffy said by October, thousands of participants would have engaged in the trial program, stress-testing the airport's systems, processes and people.

"We're aiming to make these various elements to be as 'fail safe' as they can be," Duffy said.

"This is also about giving us as much experience as possible in navigating the inherently dynamic nature of round-the-clock airport operations.

"It's a unique and positive opportunity we're able to leverage as Australia's first major international greenfield airport in more than 50 years."

While an airport can "work technically", it can still present challenges for real passengers, said Dr Garth Lean, senior lecturer in tourism and heritage studies at Western Sydney University.

"Putting hundreds of volunteers through [the testing] can show where queues form, which signs are unclear, whether accessibility arrangements work as intended and where people need assistance," Lean told Explore.

The volunteers were part of a unique experience.

"This is a major piece of Australian infrastructure that will be operating for generations, so there is something quite nice about knowing you were among the first members of the public through it and helped test how it works," Lean said.

"Their grandchildren may be recounting that story at the 100th anniversary!"

While the Jetstar test flight didn't carry volunteers, it tested the arrival and departure procedures for aircraft, taxiing, gate access, aerobridge alignment and aircraft turnaround under real operating conditions, according to Lean.

A big part of the passenger testing was to ensure the airport was compliant with aviation safety regulations, said Justin Brownjohn, senior manager at RMIT Aviation Academy.

"The volunteers will be asked to pressure test the security of the airport, no doubt there will be some volunteers that will be tasked with roleplaying then attempting to go somewhere they shouldn't in order to test the protections and response," Brownjohn told Explore.

The airport only has a handful of airlines signed up so far - Jetstar, Qantas, Air New Zealand, Singapore Airlines and Vietjet - and Brownjohn said the commercial team would be "working overdrive" over the next few years to secure as many airlines as they can.

Jetstar chief pilot Tyrone Simes, who flew the first passenger plane into the brand new airport, said it was a once-in-a-career moment.

He said it was "a genuinely exciting milestone for me and the team".

"We're doing this eight weeks out from the first flight deliberately. It gives us time to take what we learned today and build it into our procedures and crew briefings, ensuring everything is fully tested and refined well ahead of launch," Simes said on the day of the test flight.

The flight was about "getting to know the airport before we carry customers".

"Crew flew the arrival and departure exactly as they will in October, then worked through the ground side of the operation: the taxi route to the gate, lining up on the aerobridge, and the turnaround that gets the aircraft back out again," Simes said.

"By the time we carry our first customers from Western Sydney, every element of this operation will be familiar to us - and we can't wait to share that first flight with them."