Singapore, 24 Jan 2018 – Changi Airport recorded handling 62.2 million passengers in 2017 and expects traffic to grow this year.
Traffic growth was broad-based across the regions at 6% especially India and China. To and from the two nations expanded in the double-digits, expanding at 12% to 6.3 million and 16% to 4.2 million respectively.
Meanwhile, traffic to and from Kuala Lumpur rose 7%, overtaking Jakarta as the airport’s busiest route, while Guangzhou was the fastest growing destination at 15%.
South-east Asia and North-east Asia contributed to about 70% of total traffic at Changi last year and Indonesia has been earmarked as the engine of growth.
Aircraft take-offs and landings were up by 3.5% year on year to a milestone 373,200 in 2017 while cargo throughput grew by 7.9%, surpassing two million tonnes for the first time to hit 2.13 million tonnes. Growth was seen for cargo throughput across imports (8%), exports (14%) and trans-shipments (4%). A third runway planned to be built by the early 2020s will help ease air traffic congestion.
In past years, the aggressive expansion of low-cost carriers (LCCs) had enabled Changi to clock double-digit growth. However, LCC expansion has since slowed in line with a more mature market, resulting in single-digit growth since 2013. Today, LCCs account for roughly 30% of Changi’s traffic.
Between 2015 and 2035, traffic at South-east Asia’s largest airport is forecast to grow at a compound annual growth rate of about 3 to 4%.
Changi is expanding an existing terminal and adding a new one. When retail and lifestyle development Jewel and the expansion of Terminal 1 is completed in 2019, it will add three million in annual passenger handling capacity up to 82 million at Terminals 1 to 4 currently. While Terminal 5, slated to launch around 2030, will add a further 50 million in capacity.
New routes to Europe this year will include Scoot’s direct service to Berlin and LOT Polish Airlines’ link to Warsaw. In addition, Qantas will launch a daily Singapore-London route from March, while Germany’s Lufthansa will resume flights to Munich.
