Changi Airport: Preparing for future growth of Asia Pacific region

At Routes World, International Airport Review’s Editor, Holly Miles, caught up with Mr. Peh Ke-Wei, Vice President of Market Development of Changi Airport Group.

Ke Wei discussed the Terminal 2 engineering works which has brought Changi’s overall capacity to 90 million passengers per annum and includes even more automation and innovation, including fast check-in self-service counters to provide a totally seamless journey from check-in, to immigration, to boarding.

Other topics that came up for discussion include their successful free Singapore Tour being offered to those with more than five and a half hours transit time, the tour is helping them to differentiate themselves from the other competing major air hubs in their region, 

Ke Wei went on to discuss the challenges they are facing, which includes a lack of manpower due to people leaving the industry during the pandemic and not returning, this is an issue that they need to solve as they are currently at around 90% of 2019 passenger numbers and expect to recover to 100% in 2024. They have held career fairs to attract people into the industry. They are also trying to reduce reliance on people through innovation into autonomous vehicles, automation, digitalisation, self-service check-in counters. 

We discussed the younger generation, who Ke Wei says are still excited about what aviaiton has to offer. At Changi, they can demonstrate that candidates will have a life-long career like Peh Ke Wei himself who has spent over 16 years in his role at Changi Airport Group. Employees have fantastic surroundings working in the airport in terms of shopping and dining. The Jewel is the most instagrammable spot in Singapore with the world’s tallest indoor waterfall. Changi’s Terminal 5 will start construction soon, which indicates their confidence in the aviation market and the future growth forecast by IATA in the Asia Pacific region.

The Terminal 5 footprint is as large as Terminals 1, 2, 3 and 4 combined, so it is a huge development. The design takes into account the lessons learned from the pandemic on how to design an airport and how they can compartmentalise and segregate passengers into high-risk / low-risk like they did during COVID. 

Ke Wei went on to discuss the hurdles to air service development in his region, which he said is high competition and aggressive expansion programmes, for example Saudi Tourism and launching their air connectiivity programme. Terminal 5 is the terminal of the future.

Listen to the exclusive podcast now!

Terminal 5 project

Terminal 2