Young workers at Sydney Airport are cutting across dangerous roads to walk to the next suburb to avoid paying the high cost of an airport train ticket home, employers have complained to the NSW government.

The fee levied by the private rail operator inflates a ticket to Central Station from $3.60 to $15.90 and is costing airport staff an extra $1000 a year to commute to work, a parliamentary inquiry has been told.

Walk to work: Kothar Chahine and Bradley Elms. Credit:Sahlan Hayes

The rail operator, Airport Link, claims air travellers are wealthy and ''not price sensitive''. But 28,000 airport workers, who mostly live in the local area, cannot afford what is often a 400 per cent mark-up on train travel, Sydney Airport Corporation says.

The City of Sydney, the Sydney Business Chamber, Botany Bay council and the airport corporation are arguing that the station access fee should be dropped because it distorts transport choices and is impacting on Sydney's economy by driving tens of thousands of airport passengers and staff on to heavily congested roads each day.