Up to 150,000 passengers are passing through Changi Airport daily, with about a million each week, or about 75 percent of the average weekly passengers pre-pandemic, said Singapore Transport Minister S. Iswaran.
This is more than twice the number that passed through the airport when Singapore reopened its borders to vaccinated travellers in April.
Despite the uptick, the airport is well equipped to handle the higher volume, Iswaran said on Facebook, citing the reopenings of Terminal 4, on 13 Sept, and the southern wing of Terminal 2, on 11 Oct, The Straits Times reported.
On Wednesday, Changi Airport Group (CAG) said 2022 had been a year of strong recovery, as the number of passengers and flight movements steadily climbed over the months.
It handled 23.6 million passengers in the first 10 months of the year, representing 42 percent of its pre-Covid-19 traffic.
Of those 23.6 million people, 3.69 million passed through Changi Airport’s terminals in October, or about 65 percent of its traffic in October 2019.
“As of the first week of December 2022, 95 airlines operate over 5,500 weekly scheduled flights at Changi Airport, connecting Singapore to some 140 cities in 48 countries and territories worldwide,” CAG said, adding that this was 82 percent of pre-pandemic connectivity.
Australia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand were the top traffic markets in the first 10 months, but the strongest passenger traffic recovery came from North America, South Asia and Europe.
CAG said: “Passenger traffic to and from North America has rebounded strongly to exceed pre-pandemic levels. For the South Asia market, apart from re-establishing all pre-Covid-19 city links, Changi added a new one to Pune on Dec 2.
“For Europe, Changi has almost returned to the pre-Covid-19 level of flight frequencies.”
