Singapore’s Changi Airport to expand with new mega terminal to stay ahead of regional rivals

The new Terminal 5 would add capacity for another 50 million passengers a year when operational in the mid-2030s, up from 90 million, and would allow the aviation hub serve more than 200 destinations, from almost 150 now.

“We will break ground for the construction of T5 in the first half of next year,” Wong said at a dinner on Friday celebrating the 40th anniversary of the nation’s civil aviation authority.

Changi Airport is the busiest in Southeast Asia, handling almost 60 million passengers last year as international travel bounced back from Covid. In the first half of this year, passenger traffic at Changi returned to almost 100 per cent of pre-pandemic levels, Wong said.

But other cities in the region have also been adding capacity in an effort to gain a bigger slice of a growing global market for air travel. Global passenger traffic is expected to double by 2042 to nearly 20 billion, according to Montreal-based Airports Council International.