Construction noise, coffee and boredom: How to spend all day at Western Sydney Airport

It was around the third hour of construction noise at Western Sydney International Airport that it felt like a bad idea to spend an entire day at the terminal.

The plan was simple enough: Sydney has a brand-new airport, and the Herald wanted to know what the terminal experience was like. And what better way to test it than to spend a full day there without a flight?

We imagined something akin to the 2004 Tom Hanks film The Terminal, where a man is stuck living at an airport. The difference here is that Tom Hanks was stranded at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, and I am stuck at Western Sydney International. This is how the day unfolded.

10am: Arrival

My Uber drops me off at the designated taxi stand and I take in my home for the next few hours.

The airport’s a lovely sight, all wooden beams and sleek finishes, like a mid-century modern spaceship. Outside are pockets of grass and bushes, benches and walkways to public transport, all an attractive sight without crowds of people around.

At this point, only enthusiasts, locals or influencers mill about, mostly keen to have a look. This already felt like a great day of journalism.

10.30am: Search for coffee

I begin as I would if I actually were flying out: buying a coffee. The challenges of the day start to dawn on me. There is only one coffee kiosk and a convenience store open at the check-in counters.

Surely there would be more options in the terminal itself, having opened to both international and domestic flights this past week, right?

To discover the answer, I have to go through security and into the airport terminal. And to nobody’s surprise, I am randomly selected to have my bag searched.

And while, as a Lebanese-Australian Muslim, I am no stranger to security checks, being stopped on my first entry at WSIA is special.

Once security clears me and my bag, I am finally free to search for more coffee options, but to my dismay, there are only kiosks and one convenience store. Most of the food court is under construction, with at least a cafe and pub on the way, but not open yet.

And so I’m forced to turn to the kiosks, which are all called Westbound Cafe and all serve coffee in chic beige cups with blue lids. There’s one at the food court and one at the gates, and the flat white is $6.50. Serviceable if not spectacular.

The barista says they served more than 18,000 customers on the airport’s first day on Sunday: “Half passengers and half people coming to see.”

“It’s obviously a lot less busy now,” she says to me – and all three people in the terminal. Because while the airport is fully functional, it is not, in fact, buzzing. Three flights are set to depart this day, and three will arrive, all in the afternoon.

11am: The gates and the seats

Beyond the food court without food are the gates, lined up alongside enormous glass windows that stretch high into the ceiling, looking out onto the tarmac and the Blue Mountains beyond.

It’s a beautiful, empty sight, full of brand-new seating arrangements and one unused travelator. The narrow stretch features only five gates.

There are about half a dozen seating options: plain benches featuring green plastic chairs, upholstered armchairs and long recliners. I, of course, try them all.

One by one, I sit in the different chairs, stare out into space for a minute, get up and move to the next. The armchairs are an immediate stand-out. They’re firm, supportive and comfortable – enough so that I almost forgot I should be trying the others.

The recliners are great in theory, but awkward to sit on. They don’t lean back enough to make a nap viable, and are not upright enough for a comfortable seat. The benches are as you expect.

There are also couches with low backrests, benches for customers to work on, and power outlets at almost every seat.

More people arrive at this point, but the first flight out is more than two hours away. The boredom begins to grip me like hunger.

A man reads the evacuation plan so closely his nose almost touches the wall. I feel that.

Noon: Banana bread and snacks

I return to the Westbound kiosk in the food court searching for a snack and something to pass the time.

The banana bread is $8.50 and tastes like banana cardboard. The worker tells me the airport will come alive as passengers arrive; some are trickling in.

I sit at one of the benches in the food court and people-watch. Soon there are families, dragging their bags and kids at pace, young people leisurely wandering around, and retirees poking at information screens.

Both the convenience and the tech store open and, suddenly, it feels like a real airport.

1pm: Relay and sunglasses

After an extended period of people-watching, I decide to explore the convenience store, run by the chain Relay.

The Relay at the food court is massive. There are meds and vitamins, Penrith Panthers merch, Sally Rooney novels, Lego sets and a truly incredible selection of snacks.

They stock every kind of Maltesers (there are different kinds now), every kind of Skittles (Cloudz Fruit Skittles, anyone?), and a huge section of “healthy snacks” including perhaps the largest selection of protein bars ever stocked.

Beginning to feel overwhelmed with the colours, I turn to the books and magazines. A very respectable collection, but one worker concedes they do not stock newspapers.

“You’re the third person to ask us that today,” she remarks as I gently encourage them to stock the Herald.

Just outside the Relay is a kiosk selling sunglasses, where I take a dramatically long pause and imagine what I would look like in every pair. I very seriously try on a pair of Oakleys and reconsider my glasses set-up.

2pm: Lunch

There are now a considerable number of people in the food court and at the gates. Jacquelin Poutu and her five children are heading to the Gold Coast on the first flight out today to see family. She has loved the experience so far.

“We wouldn’t be going if this airport didn’t exist. We live in Penrith, and it was 20 minutes to come here, which is amazing. It was the fastest airport trip ever.”

As Poutu wrangles her children through the gate and onto the Jetstar flight, others are at the large windows, waiting to check in at the last second or waving off family. It’s a heartwarming sight, a real airport operating in a real way. And it makes me hungry.

I sneak away to the Westbound kiosk at the gates again and grab a “Schnitzel Panini” for $16.90, which once again tastes like cardboard. They also get my fake name wrong; having told them I am “Steve”, they call out for a “Joe”.

But it’s all forgettable amid the excitment of the flight preparing to leave.

3pm: The spotters

A crowd has formed around the giant windows, mostly plane spotters watching the flights take off. There’s another flight at 3.50pm to Brisbane, and the spotters are excited.

Plane enthusiast Zaid Siddiqui, 23, has been waiting for months for this day (because he was working on Sunday and Monday, when the airport formally opened, he seized his first chance) and chats while he holds his phone steady and films the plane.

“It’s super-exciting to have an airport so close. I would struggle to watch planes at Sydney Airport because it is so far away. I live in Emu Plains and this was a short trip.”

Siddiqui is in a Boeing T-shirt and remains focused on the plane and if it moves at all, as people begin boarding. He describes WSIA as a “clean and well-designed airport”.

I return to my preferred armchair and watch some of the spotters applaud as the plane gets moving.

4pm: Empty again

Once the second flight of the day has left, the airport empties and I am left to consider my existence again.

Since I have been at the gates for a while, I decide to take a walk. It is a three-minute walk from the last gate to the food court, at a pretty leisurely pace. It’s another two minutes through the entire food court.

I spot the Pet Relief Room just beyond and excitedly jog over. Unfortunately, it is locked, which makes me wonder what happens to any pet requiring relief today.

Next door are two identical prayer rooms, which are serviceable if not a little snug. I estimate they can accommodate two or three people each, maybe four if everyone squeezes in.

I wander back to the gates, walking past the now-empty food court. The next flight is a Jetstar flight to Melbourne at 6.45pm. The only noise comes from the two large screens at the gates, showing a western Sydney dance troupe.

5pm

Finally, it is time to leave. By this point I am lounging at the recliners at the very end of the terminal and wondering if the security personnel at the other end could hear me talking to myself.

I bounce up, pack my bag in a hurry, and begin rushing out, hoping the staff will follow me out of the airport and shower me with farewell gifts and well-wishes like Tom Hanks in The Terminal.

No one did. It was a five-minute walk from the terminal to the exit, for the record.

And while nobody ever needs to spend more than two to three hours at an airport, being there all day did teach me one thing: food options make or break a terminal. And I was hungry.

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