'Model' Changi seeks new runway, terminals

Mrs Teo: The committee is also studying the need for additional terminals (adjacent to the new runway) and use of existing land between the current two runways - FILE PHOTO

[SINGAPORE] Changi Airport is poised to grow and it is taking on board lessons from other top Asian airports as it plots its future.

Plans for Changi's third runway will be unveiled at the end of this year by the Changi 2036 Steering Committee.

The committee is devising a comprehensive land-use plan to develop a 1,000 ha piece of land between runway 2 and the future runway 3. This includes a part of Changi Coast Road and is in addition to Changi Airport's 1,350 ha.

Chair of the committee, Minister of State Josephine Teo, said studies were already well underway to chart out the premier airport's continued growth for the next quarter of a century. "One of the key priorities is to look at the runway capacity,' she told journalists.

"Now the third runway is used exclusively by the military," she said, referring to the Singapore Air Force's facility lying just south of the airport after the coastal road. "The challenge is to decide when to convert this for civilian co-use."

That runway will need to be lengthened for use by larger aircraft such as the A380.

Other issues which the Changi 2036 Steering Committee is studying is the need for additional terminals (adjacent to the new runway) and use of existing land between the current two runways.

Mrs Teo said members of her committee had been visiting leading airports around Asia and the Pacific, such as Dubai, Incheon, Doha, Hong Kong and Guangzhou, to see how they had grown in tandem with their host cities and to learn about innovative growth strategies they had adopted.

She noted that Hong Kong Airport was capturing the 120 million passenger traffic Pearl River Delta market by using airport ferries and purpose-built piers to transfer passengers to and out of the airport to cities in the region.

Incheon, located some 70 km away for Seoul, had developed its own "city" offering aesthetic medical services, fashion-retail, casinos and other tourist-related attractions targeted at travellers from north-eastern China.

Meanwhile, US logistics giant Federal Express has moved from Clarke in the Philippines to Baiyun Airport in Guangzhou, making the latter its largest base base in Asia.

But Mrs Teo also noted that every airport she visited cited the multi award-winning Changi Airport as the reference point for industry best-practices and standards.

"Changi is seen as a role model," she said. "So we are in a position of strength from which we can do things to keep Changi flying high."

She explained that Changi had to continue growing capacity ahead of demand in order to ensure sustained growth.

"But traffic is also determined by country factors," she added, noting Singapore's emergence as one of the world's top financial, business and logistics centres had made it a destination for 75 per cent of all traffic flying to Changi.

Passenger traffic at Changi Airport has been growing by around 10 per cent since the middle of the last decade (driven largely by low cost traffic) and reached a new high of 47 million last year. This year, it is expected to surpass 50 million.

While the four existing terminals can cater for 73 million passengers, the replacement of the budget terminal with a larger "hybrid" terminal, coupled with additional capacity at T1, will boost Changi's capacity to 85 million by 2017.

"But runway is now a bigger constraint than terminal (capacity)," said Mrs Teo, acknowledging the fact that runway delays were becoming increasingly common.

Industry insiders say that with Changi's two runways now operating at 80 per cent capacity, the margin for error is small. Extreme or inclement weather has the potential to cause massive traffic disruptions and force flight diversions, they add.

But Mrs Teo noted that any expansion of the runway capacity could easily take at least six years or more. This may still make it operational before Hong Kong's next runway, which will be ready only in 2023.

"In the meantime, more can be done to optimise usage. There is more scope for us to enhance efficiencies."

A century after aviation came to Singapore, planning and managing this Singapore success story remains very much a work in progress for the Changi 2036 Steering Committee.