Regional communities and travellers facing cancellation due to weather or security events are set to benefit from proposed reforms to Australia's busiest airport.
Airlines will also need to explain how they use their allocated slots at Sydney Airport in a bid to make the system more competitive and give travellers better information.
Regional carriers will be able to apply for available slots in changing peak periods beyond their previous allocations in a bid to improve connectivity.
The government also plans to introduce a "recovery period" to temporarily allow more planes to take off and land after severe weather events or security issues that disrupt travel.
The reforms do not impact the 11pm curfew and focus on "improving the use of this significant piece of national infrastructure while maintaining community protections," Transport and Infrastructure Minister Catherine King said on Wednesday.
The airport's management welcomed the proposed reforms, saying they will boost efficiency and competition for its 40 million annual travellers and benefit the aviation industry more widely.
"Sydney Airport is the biggest hub in Australia’s aviation network, so when we get disrupted, the whole system is severely impacted," chief executive Scott Charlton said.
Storms on Monday led to the cancellation of 50 domestic services in 45 minutes, he said.
"In the future, with a recovery mechanism hopefully it won't be necessary to cancel these flights."
The two-hour recovery period after service disruptions will allow for up to 85 movements per hour, above the scheduling cap of 80 flights per hour, which will remain in place.
"There will be no increase in the overall number of flights for that whole day ... only flights that are already scheduled to happen that day will be able to take off or land." Ms King said.
How those slots are allocated and used will also be a target for greater transparency, with published audits to verify airline-provided information on reasons for cancellations or major delays.
The audits will detect and crack down on anti-competitive behaviour, Ms King said, with the first to be carried out before the end of 2024.
Peak periods will be reduced by three hours, beginning at 7am and 5pm, rather than the current 6am-11am and 3pm-8pm timeslots.
The slot manager will be required to consider giving priority to regional services among other considerations in allocating peak slots.
It's hoped modernising the allocation of aircraft slots will make the system more competitive and efficient.
"This will benefit new entrant airlines wanting to set up new services, crack down on slot misuse and create a more level playing field in slot allocation processes," Ms King said.
The government faced accusations of too cosy a relationship with Qantas after Qatar Airways was denied 28 additional slots at Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane airports in July.
A parliamentary inquiry later probed the role of Qantas in Ms King's rejection of Qatar's application.
She offered a number of reasons for the rejection, including protecting the local aviation sector during its pandemic recovery, reducing emissions, and an incident at Qatar's Doha International Airport in 2020 where five Australian women were subjected to invasive gynaecological examinations.
It added to turbulence at the carrier over accusations it sold tickets to flights it had already cancelled, leading to outgoing chief executive Alan Joyce taking off two months ahead of his scheduled departure in September.
Qantas announced on Wednesday former Telstra chair John Mullen will join the board as chairman elect after Richard Goyder announced his retirement in October.
It came after Jayne Hrdlicka announced she would leave her role as chief executive of rival carrier Virgin Australia on Tuesday.
