[SINGAPORE] The upcoming Terminal 5 (T5) should take Changi Airport into the ranks of Asia’s “mega airports”, defined as those that handle more than 100 million passengers a year, said Stefano Baronci, director-general of Airports Council International (ACI) for the Asia-Pacific and the Middle East.
He was speaking at a media roundtable organised by Changi Airport Group.
Along with its connections to many cities and its status as a popular passenger transfer hub, the increase in capacity should turn Changi into a “mega airport”, he noted.
Changi Airport Group estimated that T5 will bump up the airport’s annual capacity to 140 million passengers, from the current 90 million. The airport’s network is also estimated to grow from around 170 city links today, to more than 200 by the mid-2030s.
ACI expects future mega airports to be in Asia because of the region being home to megacities – defined as those with more than 10 million people – as well as its macroeconomic development, demographics and population growth.
Of the current 39 megacities in the world, 23 are in Asia.
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In 2024, ACI ranked Changi Airport as the fourth-busiest airport in the world in terms of international passenger traffic, behind Dubai, London’s Heathrow and Incheon airports. In the year ended March, Singapore set a record for passenger traffic with 68.4 million passengers.
But as a city, Singapore’s airport still lags behind cities with multiple airports in terms of traffic.
ACI data showed that there are 10 cities with mega airports or mega airport systems – referring to cities with more than one airport. Of these, the US has four – Chicago, New York, Atlanta and Dallas; Europe has three with London, Paris and Istanbul; and Asia has the rest with Beijing, Tokyo and Shanghai.
Baronci expects two more Asian cities to have mega airport systems soon: Bangkok and Seoul, which handled around 93 million and 94 million passengers in 2024, respectively.
He added that with regional airport infrastructure scaling up to meet the demand for predicted industry growth, it is timely that Singapore is starting work on T5 now.
Noting the May 14 (Wednesday) ground-breaking ceremony, he said: “In terms of timing, (Singapore) cannot waste more time than that if (it) wants to keep a position like the one that it is occupying now.”
In the meantime, Changi Airport can stay competitive by tending to its other aspects, such as the quality of service, the cooperation between airport stakeholders, and the use of artificial intelligence or automation to improve efficiency, he said.
