Singapore’s Transport Minister S. Iswaran said Tuesday (17 May) that will construction will restart on Changi Airport Terminal 5 in two to three years and be complete by the mid-2030s in time for an expected increase in air passenger traffic following the downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Singapore stopped construction in May 2020 to review its options as the pandemic shut down air travel and cast doubt on growth projections. “Given the current and projected recovery in air travel demand, we have a renewed impetus to secure our infrastructural capacity for growth,” said Iswaran. T5’s design has been updated to become more modular and flexible, and this will be further refined, he added.
International Air Transport Authority (Iata) Director General Willie Walsh has said international air travel is likely to recover to pre-Covid-19 levels by 2023, one year earlier than expected.
Although air traffic in the Asia-Pacific region continues to lag behind Europe, America and Africa, signs in the first quarter of the year have been encouraging. The number of passengers at Changi Airport crossed 40 per cent of pre-pandemic levels last month, Iswaran said earlier, nearing the government’s target of 50 percent by year-end.
Recovery in the Asia-Pacific is expected to gain momentum over the coming months, Iswaran said, with countries like Cambodia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and South Korea reopening borders to fully vaccinated travellers and removing testing and quarantine restrictions in some cases.
Changi’s Terminal 2 remains closed while renovations continue and is expected to reopen in phases later this year.
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