Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport is one of, if not the primary gateways to Australia. Sydney is by far the busiest airport in the country, with nearly 900 flights a day and 3 million passengers each month.
Runways:
16R / 34L - This is the main runway at SYD, it sees the most use out of the three available runways mainly due to it’s length. If you’re a heavy aircraft you should be departing from this runway. At nearly 4km in length it is able to accommodate the biggest jets we get here.
16L / 34R - The second of the two North/South runways here, this runway is mainly used for lighter/smaller departures, and aircraft departing to either the East (e.g. Auckland) or the South (Melbourne). A380 ops for this runway are prohibited - There are no taxiways to the runway that are able to accommodate the A380.
07/25 - The singular East/West runway sees the least usage on a day to day basis of all runways. Runway 25 is used on a semi-regular basis when the winds require it, usually around 15-20kts of direct crosswind. This runway can accept A380s, you will often see A380s departing for Singapore from this runway.
Where Do I Park and Spawn?
International Flights - Terminal 1
INTL Terminal
→ Sydney has 25 available bays that are directly connected to the terminal building (Outlined in Red)
→ There are a further 9 bays that are used as remote gates (Outlined in Yellow) - Bays 1-6 are also Cargo bays.
→ The bays circled Green indicate the available parking locations for the A380
Note
Bays 1-6 are labelled in app as “Cargo #” - They can be, and are regularly used for Pax ops on a daily basis as remote bus gates in addition to their normal Cargo use.
Domestic Flights - Terminals 2 and 3
Terminal 2 - Jetstar / Virgin / Rex
→ Terminal 2 is split between the 3 big domestic carriers named above.
→ Jetstar mostly use the first “arm” of the terminal (Outlined Orange)
→ Virgin Australia and Rex use the second “arm” of Terminal 2. Both airlines use B737-800 aircraft at these gates.
→ The remote stands at Domestic are mainly used by the Rex Saab Fleet, however Virgin Australia occasionally use bays F5 + F6 as remote stands. In addition to this, Link Airways and FlyPelican also use these remote stand on occasion. (Outlined Yellow)
→ The 90s bays are rarely used, mainly for storage or the occasional remote gate when busy (Outlined Green)
Note
It is not uncommon for all the airlines to rotate through the two “arms” where it is operationally required.
Terminal 3 - Qantas / QantasLink
→ The Qantas Terminal has 31 bays available. Bays 1-14 are directly connected to the Terminal, these are used by all Qantas Flights. All gates can accommodate the B737-800 which is the primary aircraft used here. (Outlined in Red)
→ Bays Circled in Green can accommodate A330 Aircraft.
→ QantasLink aircraft use the remote bays, DH8D Aircraft only (Outlined in Yellow)
→ The Qantas Jet Base is where all maintenance takes place for the Qantas Fleet. (Outlined Blue)
→ Outlined in Orange are the remaining Cargo stands, Primarily used by DHL 777F.
Note
- QantasLink B717s park in the regular Qantas Bays, not the remote QLink bays.
- When A330 aircraft are parked on bay 13, bays 12 & 14 are unable to be used.
Private Jets
DOM5 + DOM6 aprons
→ SYD thankfully gets a decent amount of Private Jet movements, they park near the threshold of runway 25. (Outlined Yellow)
→ The NSW Air Ambulance (Operated by Pel-Air) use the remaining stands and hangar to store and park their fleet of King Air and Pilatus Aircraft (Outlined Red)
Taxi Routes
Inbound + Outbound 16L/34R
No particularly complicated taxi routes for Sydney. General rule: Keep Left
The only clarification needed is here:
Inbound: Green route
Outbound: Red route
Standard Departure Procedures / SIDs
Below are some recommendations for SID usage. The SY2 in app will not add anything to your Flight plan, it is purely a radar vectors departure. Aircraft departing from the parallel runways MUST turn away from the adjacent runway.
Runway 07 is hardly used due to the fact that the winds almost always favour the other runways.
34L
Recommended SIDs:
→ RIC5 - Per the charts, “After passing 12 SY, EXPECT RADAR vectors to cleared route.” Aircraft that don’t require vectors will track to the RIC NDB, then as cleared.
→ WOL2 / KADOM1 - Track 335º. At 800 turn LEFT. Track 290º to 10 DME SY.
WOL: At 10 DME SY turn LEFT Track 260. After passing 7000 turn LEFT. Track direct to ANKUB. From ANKUB track 182º to WOL NDB, then via cleared route.
KADOM: At 10 DME SY Track DCT KADOM, thence via cleared route
07
Recommended SID:
–>FISHA8 (RNAV) - Vectors to cleared route from FISHA if not transitioning at ENTRA or WOL
25
For Runway 25, there are no official RNAV departures. Instead, the Sydney 2 radar departure is used for Runway 25. Aircraft will depart and fly heading 242º (runway heading) to 800 ft. From there they turn to their assigned heading and expect vectors to their cleared route.
→ Sydney Two
NB: Chart below shows procedures for ALL runways. SY2 is mostly used by prop aircraft on the other runways.
Standard Arrival Procedures / STARS
Sydney has a few decent STARs for pilots to use. The three most used / usable are the BORE3A, MARLN5 and RIVET3. These cover all directions for inbound aircraft, charts and what arrival to use are listed below.
NB: The BORE3P can also be used, but it only serves RWY16R.
ATC
Runway Configuration suggestions:
34L & 34R → Both runways available for landing and departing
16L & 16R → As above
25 → Available for both landing and departure - Also recommend having 34L/16R available where required for heavy aircraft departing on long flights. e.g. an A380 to LAX
07 → As above
Something Different
If you’d like to try out something different, SODPROPS could be for you… if it’s not too busy and you’re a more experienced controller.
On occasion, Sydney will run Simultaneous opposite direction parallel runway operations the name says it all. Usual config is as follows:
→ 34L arrivals, 16L Departures. 34L available for departures IF OPERATIONALLY REQUIRED.
I’ll keep this thread up to date with any amendments / NOTAMs. Hope this helps you when you next fly to/from Sydney.
Alex 🇦🇺
Banner credit goes to @sqeezelemon - dates back to 2021… it’s just taken me a while to get this up.
