SINGAPORE — Changi Airport’s fourth and newest terminal is off to a smooth start on its first full day of operations.

Some 250 travellers from Hong Kong were among the first to arrive at Terminal 4 (T4) at 5.25am on Tuesday (Oct 31), via a Cathay Pacific flight.

The same aircraft, with another 250 passengers on board, turned around and took off at 6.50am as the first flight to depart from T4 on its inaugural day of operations.

The new terminal is expected to receive and see off 20 flights, carrying close to 6,700 passengers, during its first 24 hours of operations, according to Changi Airport Group (CAG).

In a week, T4 is expected to scale up to cover flights from six airlines, including those of budget airline AirAsia, from next Tuesday (Nov 7).

The new terminal is designed for efficiency and greater automation, with new features such as self-service kiosks for check-ins, bag-drop, immigration and boarding.

A facial recognition system, which captures a passenger’s photo at the various kiosks, will authenticate the traveller's identity as he or she moves through the airport.

Passengers who used the new automated services on Tuesday said the process was mostly seamless.

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For instance, it took less than 15 minutes to board the 250 Hong Kong-bound passengers via the automated boarding gates, even though about half of them had to be rerouted to manned counters for their boarding pass to be manually scanned.

A CAG spokesperson said this was likely due to passengers having crumpled their boarding passes after checking in.

American tourist Pryntha Goldsmith described the experience at T4 as almost “Disney World-like”. “The moment we got onto the cab, the driver was so excited that he got to bring us to the new terminal,” said the Florida resident, who is on a 10-day holiday in Singapore and Hong Kong.

The 55-year-old said the instructions for the self check-in counters were easy to follow, and that she was looking forward to visiting Singapore again.

Chinese nationals Ms Liu, 66, and her husband, also gave the new terminal the thumbs-up. “We felt very lucky and happy to be among the first. The transit hall is very clean and comfortable, and the customer service staff here are full of smiles,” said Ms Liu, who took a 30-minute nap at T4’s transit hall before her flight back home to central Henan province via Hong Kong.

More than 100 trials, involving 2,500 airport staff and 1,500 volunteers, had been conducted at T4 since construction completed last December to prepare the terminal for its full opening on Tuesday.

T4, which is slightly less than half the size of T3 but can handle two-thirds of its traffic, is capable of accommodating up to 16 million passengers a year. This would up Changi Airport’s total annual capacity to 82 million travellers.

Six airlines will operate out of T4 in this initial phase, with Cathay Pacific and Korean Air already up and running in the new terminal. On Thursday, Spring Airlines and Cebu Pacific will start operating from T4, shifting its operations from T1 and T2 respectively.

And by next Tuesday, AirAsia and Vietnam Airlines will also be at T4. These airlines were at T1 and Terminal 3 respectively.