Singapore to restart work on new airport terminal as passengers return

By Chen Lin

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Singapore will resume building a fifth terminal at its Changi Airport after a two-year hiatus, the transport minister said on Tuesday, as regional and global air and passenger traffic recovers from the pandemic.

Traffic in May doubled compared with March to stand at about 40% of pre-pandemic levels, transport minister S. Iswaran said in a speech at an aviation summit on Tuesday.

“Given the current and projected recovery in air travel demand, we have a renewed impetus to secure our infrastructural capacity for growth,” he said.

Singapore is one of Asia’s main travel hubs and saw more than 68 million passengers pass through Changi Airport in 2019.

The government paused work on the latest terminal two years ago because of the pandemic to re-assess the trajectory of aviation growth and review the terminal’s design to meet the needs of post-pandemic travel, he added.

The city-state plans to start construction of terminal 5 in two to three years to have it ready to meet anticipated demand around the mid-2030s, Iswaran said.

(Reporting by Chen Lin in Singapore; Editing by Ed Davies and Kanupriya Kapoor)