Singapore to build new airport terminal

A taxi passes in front of Singapore’s budget terminal which, Singapore's airport operator Changi Airport Group said Thursday, March 1, 2012, will be demolished to give way to a bigger facility that can accommodate 16 million passengers, more than double the present seven million capacity. AFP PHOTO/ROSLAN RAHMAN

SINGAPORE—Singapore’s airport operator said Thursday it will demolish the city-state’s terminal for budget airlines in September and replace it with a bigger facility amid surging travel demand.

The tiny but affluent city-state welcomed a record 13 million overseas visitors last year, boosted in part by a boom in low-cost air travel.

Construction of the new facility, called Terminal 4, will start next year, the Changi Airport Group said in a statement.

It will have the capacity to handle 16 million passengers a year when it opens in 2017, more than double the seven million capacity of the current budget terminal.

Singapore’s three other airport terminals have a capacity to handle 66 million passengers a year.

“The (budget) terminal will be demolished to make way for the construction of a larger passenger building… to cater to the growth of air traffic at Changi Airport and further strengthen Singapore’s air hub status,” the airport operator said.

While the airport still had room to accommodate air traffic growth, the new terminal would “ensure there is capacity to handle further increase in traffic demand,” it added.

Low-cost carriers currently operating out of the budget terminal will transfer to Changi’s Terminal 2 from September 25, the airport operator said.

Singapore is a regional aviation hub and Changi Airport handled a total of 46.5 million international passengers last year, up 5.2 percent from 2010.

Changi Airport, which serves over a hundred airlines flying to more than 210 cities, was last week ranked the second-best airport in the world in a survey conducted by Airports Council International.