Skip to main content

Advertisement

Advertisement

Changi Airport crosses 1-billion-passenger mark

SINGAPORE — More than 1 billion passengers have passed through Changi Airport, the airport operator said on Monday (May 29), adding that it is on course to handle a record 60 million passengers this year.

SINGAPORE — More than 1 billion passengers have passed through Changi Airport, the airport operator said on Monday (May 29), adding that it is on course to handle a record 60 million passengers this year.

The billionth-passenger milestone was crossed last month, as the number of travellers handled by Changi Airport rose steadily on an annual basis since it began operations in July 1981. 

Changi — which was voted the world’s No 1 airport for the fifth consecutive year by air travellers at the 2017 Skytrax World Airport Awards — handled over 20 million passengers per annum (mppa) in 1994, 30 mppa in 2004, 40 mppa in 2010, 50 mppa in 2012 and is on track to achieve 60 mppa this year.

With more than 7,000 flights every week, or about one every 90 seconds, Changi Airport is the world’s sixth busiest airport for international traffic, and served a record 58.7 million passengers last year. 

Last month, Changi Airport handled 5.17 million passengers, up 7.8 per cent from April a year earlier. 

Passenger traffic was boosted by growth across all regions except the Middle East. Nine out of Changi’s top 20 country markets registered double-digit growth, including India (16 per cent), Indonesia (16 per cent) and Malaysia (11 per cent).

The opening of Terminal 4 in the second half of this year could boost Changi’s total passenger capacity to around 85 million per year by 2020, it was previously reported. And when Terminal 5 is opened in the late-2020s, the airport could handle up to 135 million travellers per year.

The Singapore air hub has also grown with the rise in Changi Airport’s traffic: In 1981, 34 airlines operated to 67 cities; today, about 120 airlines link Singapore to more than 380 cities globally. 

Among the latest additions is a new daily service to Hanoi launched by VietJet on April 27. Currently, seven carriers connect Singapore to three cities — Da Nang, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City — in Vietnam.

Read more of the latest in

Advertisement

Advertisement

Stay in the know. Anytime. Anywhere.

Subscribe to get daily news updates, insights and must reads delivered straight to your inbox.

By clicking subscribe, I agree for my personal data to be used to send me TODAY newsletters, promotional offers and for research and analysis.