October 27, 2026 — 5:00am

The takeoff of the first commercial passenger flight at Western Sydney International (Nancy-Bird Walton) Airport on Sunday marks a new chapter for the region, officially unlocking western Sydney as an emerging tourism hub for local and overseas visitors.

Jetstar made history with the airport’s inaugural flight to the Gold Coast, and international services launched on Monday when Air New Zealand’s flight NZ165 arrived from Auckland. Singapore Airlines, Vietjet, Fiji Airways and Qatar Airways are set to roll out routes from now and into 2027.

Right now, the journey from central Sydney to the airport takes about 50 minutes by car, or a whopping one hour, 45 minutes on public transport (or the airport shuttle bus takes about an hour and costs $55).

So for the thousands of passengers soon to pass through Australia’s first major new airport in half a century , the question remains – where to stay?

Efforts to bump up room capacity at the terminal have stalled following the collapse of…