(CNN) — Singapore’s Changi Airport has long been considered a destination in itself, so much more than just a generic space one passes through to hop on a plane and fly somewhere else.
For a decade, it went undefeated in the annual Skytrax ‘World’s Best Airports” awards, losing its crown to Qatar’s Hamad International Airport in 2021. In 2022, it landed in third place on the list, falling behind repeat winner Hamad International and Tokyo’s Haneda Airport.
Now, as travelers return to the city-state and its much-hyped airport following the lifting of pandemic-related travel restrictions earlier this year, Singapore officials are focused on the future — and that includes expansion.
Details have recently been revealed for Terminal 5, with officials promising a space that is a social extension of Singapore rather than just another piece of transport infrastructure.
“Airport as a city”
During a National Day Rally in late July, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced that T5 will add capacity for about 50 million passengers per year.
That’s a big number considering its four current passenger terminals are able to handle about 82 million passengers a year.
Pointing to a map while making his address, he noted that T5 will be as big as all four present terminals put together.
“We are building one more new Changi Airport,” he said. “It is huge.”
Construction of T5 will kick off in about two years, with the facility expected to open to travelers in the mid-2030s. Located within the 1,080-hectare Changi East development, it will have a three-runway system and be linked to the other four terminals.
Lee noted that plans for the new terminal were put on pause for two years because of the pandemic, during which the long-term prospects for air travel were reassessed and the terminal design improved.
“We concluded that the future of aviation remains bright. Now, with borders re-opening, people are traveling again,” he said. “Passenger traffic has already exceeded half of pre-Covid-19 levels.
“In the longer term, air travel will keep growing because of a fast-expanding middle class in our region. Hence we decided to go ahead and restart the T5 project.”
Changi Airport served 68.3 million passengers in…
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