T4 ‘folly’ remark taken out of context, says Scoot CEO

SINGAPORE — Budget carrier Scoot is still open to the idea of relocating to Changi Airport’s Terminal 4, although it has to assess the potential impact of such a move, its chief executive officer Campbell Wilson said yesterday.

Mr Wilson’s comment to TODAY came a day after Bloomberg News reported that he said the airport’s T4 was a “folly” at a conference in Sydney. The article quoted him as saying the terminal lacked connections to the rest of the airport and sufficient berths for large jets.

But he told TODAY that the comment was taken out of context.

“I wish to clarify that the comments made at a conference in Sydney on Aug 7 were taken out of context by Bloomberg and the selective manner in which I was quoted does not give the full picture of the points made.

“At no time did I refer to T4 as a ‘folly’. This word was used to describe any decision by Scoot that could inhibit the growth of transfer traffic over Singapore,” he said.

He also clarified that his comment about a potential move to T4 as a “retrograde step” in the Bloomberg article was in the context of it potentially being problematic if Scoot and its partner Tigerair operate from separate terminals.

“This is due to our desire to provide our customers with flight connection options,” he said.

T4 is being designed to handle 16 million passengers a year when it opens in 2017.

Elaborating, Mr Wilson said when Singapore-based budget carriers Scoot and Tigerair were both operating from the same terminal, the volume of transfer passengers went up significantly, from “virtually nothing to single-digit growth”. A move to T4 could set this growth back, he added. Both airlines have an agreement to feed passengers into each other’s network.

Nevertheless, he conceded that the words he used were “too strong” and might have appeared inappropriate.

Bloomberg did not wish to comment when contacted by TODAY.

Meanwhile, the Changi Airport Group told TODAY that it is in advanced talks with a number of airlines on operating at T4. Cathay Pacific was the first airline to confirm that it will operate at T4.

CAG said that unlike the previous Budget Terminal, T4 will enable passengers to connect to flights at the other terminals without having to clear immigration. It added that the current minimum connecting time for transfers between Scoot and other airlines at T2 can be achieved for transfers across T2 and T4.

Separately, the Competition Commission of Singapore has approved the move by Scoot and Tigerair to extend their partnership on pricing, sales and scheduling, among other matters.

Tan Weizhen