Singapore Changi Airport on Tuesday unveiled its latest terminal, a 225,000-sq-ft facility capable of handling 16 million passengers annually. Expected to start operations by the end of the year, the new Terminal 4 will increase total capacity of Changi Airport to 82 million passengers annually. Although only half the size of Terminal 3, Terminal 4 will accommodate roughly two-thirds of the passenger traffic due to technology advances.
Plans call for nine airlines to operate from Terminal 4, namely Cathay Pacific, Cebu Pacific, Korean Air, Spring Airlines, Vietnam Airlines and four airlines from the Air Asia Group. T4 will comprise 21 gates, three of which will be large enough to accommodate an Airbus A380.
“We are now close to 90 percent of our handling capacity in Terminal 1, 2 and 3,” said Poh Li San, Changi Airport Group vice president of the Terminal 4 program management office. “When we move the airlines to T4 it will give space for airlines from both sides to grow...These nine airlines would have 8 million passengers annually so we want the headroom for them to grow, and we will invite more airlines to T4 along the way.”
“We want to help the airlines manage operations in a cost-effective manner, and we have invested in several infrastructural innovations,” she added. “Fast and Seamless Travel (FAST) will reduce airline’s need for desk agents, the T4 apron has full Wi-Fi for ground handlers to leverage applications for maintenance and operators to download data from aircraft.”
T4 will become the first terminal at Changi to employ full end-to-end FAST in collaboration with SITA for departing passengers. More than half of check-in facilities will be self-service, supported by 65 SITA supplied kiosks and 50 ICM automated bag drop machines. The terminal retains 42 conventional check-in counters for airlines not yet ready for such services. Changi Airport Group estimates that FAST will yield 20 percent productivity gains in the long run.
“ T4 would be our technology and innovation testbed, so when we start the design process of the new Terminal 5 we will be confident it will work,” concluded Poh.