GGRAsia – Singapore announces pandemic-resilient airport extension

Singapore announces pandemic-resilient airport extension

Aug 22, 2022 Newsdesk Latest News, Singapore, Top of the deck

A new terminal to be developed at Singapore’s Changi Airport – to be known as Terminal 5 (T5) – will handle about 50 million passengers per year, and be designed to be pandemic resilient, said Singapore’s Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, during a National Day Rally 2022 speech on Sunday.

The development scheme – by Singapore’s Ministry of Transport, the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore, and Changi Airport Group – had been paused for two years during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a Sunday press release from the Ministry of Transport.

“We redesigned T5 to be more resilient,” said Mr Lee in his speech. He said that “in particular,” it would be able to “operate more safely and flexibly during a pandemic”.

This included the ability to “scale operations up and down more easily, and to isolate passengers from different flights to limit cross-infection,” said the prime minister.

He added: “We have also made T5 greener and more energy-efficient. And when it’s completed in mid-2030s, T5 will show the world what sort of place Singapore is.”

Singapore has a casino duopoly, shared between Marina Bay Sands, run by a unit of Las Vegas Sands Corp, and Resorts World Sentosa, run by Genting Singapore Ltd. Both operators have recently reported recovery in business coinciding with the city-state’s reopening to foreign visitors.

Changi Terminal 5 is located within the 1,080-hectare (2669-acre) Changi East development, an area described by the transport ministry as “almost as big as” the footprint of the current Changi Airport.

Terminal 5′s 50-million capacity would be equal to “Terminal 1 and Terminal 3″ put together, Mr Lee mentioned in his Sunday remarks.

“Now with borders reopening, people are travelling again. Passenger traffic has already exceeded half of pre-Covid levels. In the longer term, air travel will keep growing because of a fast-expanding middle-class in our region,” said the prime minister, explaining the restart of the new air terminal project.

Construction is expected to start in about two years, the transport ministry noted in its release.

The ministry also described the main design features of Terminal 5.

“Drawing on lessons learnt from the Covid-19 pandemic, T5 will be designed with flexibility to operate as smaller sub-terminals when needed, with space that could be converted for use during contingencies, such as testing operations or the segregation of high-risk passengers.”

The new terminal will include contactless systems at passenger “touch points” and an enhanced ventilation system that can be activated in the event of a pandemic, the ministry mentioned.