The extent of a delayed opening of a driverless train line to Sydney’s new international airport will hinge on the outcome of major negotiations with the private consortium building the mega-project, Sydney Metro has warned.
The state government agency overseeing the project has been embroiled in a dispute with the consortium building the line since late 2024 which risks blowing out its cost by up to $2.2 billion due to claims for delays, scope creep and disruptions.
Sydney Metro chief executive Peter Regan said the agency remained in a “pretty big negotiation” with the contractors building the airport line, which was a combination of tunnel, viaduct and surface-level track.
“The outcome of that negotiation will clearly impact the target date for opening,” he told a budget estimates hearing.
“We’re still in the construction phase of the railway. We’re not in the testing phase, so it’s probably too early to really sort of land that [target opening date], and it will depend on the outcome of that commercial discussion.”
The Herald has previously revealed that the dispute between the government and the consortium known as Parklife Metro will delay the line’s completion until December 2027. Opening the line at the same time as the airport late this year had been promised by successive state and federal governments.
Confidential documents authored by Sydney Metro have also shown that, as of November 2024, the agency was targeting a completion date of late December 2027 for the 23-kilometre driverless train line, which was a year later than originally planned.
Under questioning from Greens MP Cate Faehrmann, Transport Minister John Graham was reluctant to give a timeframe for the line’s opening when quizzed at the hearing about whether it would be December 2027.
“This metro line will take some time longer,” he said. “We don’t want to be paying billions of dollars of taxpayer money because of contract changes that had to be made. I’ve asked [the Metro team] to protect taxpayers’ interest first and open the line when they can.”
In December, the government confirmed that legal claims made by Parklife Metro consortium might raise the airport rail line’s total price tag by $1 billion-plus to more than $12 billion.
The consortium comprises Italian construction company Webuild, which is the primary contractor building the project, German multinational Siemens, the international arm of French rail operator RATP and Australian investor Plenary.
Sydney Metro was also questioned about allegations reported late last year by this masthead that Future Form, a subcontractor on the metro airport project, had been involved in systemic worker exploitation. Webuild faced separate allegations that it sought to conceal Future Form’s alleged workplace breaches from the Minns government.
Regan described the allegations as “very concerning”, and said an independent investigation into the matters raised would hopefully be completed soon.
The delay to the line’s opening has forced the government to put on free buses between St Marys and the new airport when the latter opens to passenger aircraft in late October. A bus trip will take 30 minutes, double the forecast 15-minute trip by train when the line eventually opens.
The first of 12 new trains for the airport rail line are due to arrive from Europe within the next few months. They will be able to be expanded to four-carriage sets if there is sufficient passenger demand, while those for Sydney’s other rail metro lines can be increased to eight carriages from six at present.
Regan also said two final business cases for extending the airport metro line northwards from St Marys to Tallawong, and to the south from the new city of Bradfield, were almost completed, and would be presented to the government within the next few months.
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Matt O’Sullivan is transport and infrastructure editor at The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X or email.