25th Jan 2008
By Zheng Xiaoyi
SINGAPORE, Jan. 25 (Xinhua) -- Singapore has recently put its 1.22 billion U.S. dollars Changi Airport Terminal 3 into operation and received the second superjumbo A380. These have enabled the city state to stand in a stronger position to consolidate its status as a regional aviation hub.
T3, which can handle up to 22 million passengers a year, opened for operations on Jan. 9, lifting Changi's capacity to 70 million. It also adds another 28 aerobridge gates to Changi, with up to eight that have been designed to handle the double-deck A380, the world's largest passenger plane.
Two days later, Singapore Airlines (SIA), the country's national carrier, welcomed its second A380 from the European aircraft manufacturer Airbus. As the world's first carrier to fly the A380, SIA started commercial services last October. The A380s make it possible for SIA to develop new products and services to enhance its status as a global premier airline.
These will enable Singapore to meet the additional increase of 300 million passengers in Asia over the next five years, said ChenGang, a research fellow of the East Asian Institute (EAI) of the National University of Singapore (NUS).
Chen Gang also noted that Singapore is now facing increasing competition from newer and larger airports in Malaysia's Kuala Lumpur, Thailand's Bangkok and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.
Bangkok's 5.2 billion U.S. dollars Suvarnabhumi Airport, which started operations in 2006, may expand to increase its capacity by22 percent to 55 million passengers a year.
Dubai is building a new airport that will be ten times the size of the existing airport.
Malaysia Airports Holdings (Bhd), which has been trying to forge the Kuala Lumpur International Airport as the region's avi-hub, expects a 5-6 percent increase in the volume of passengers using the airport this year from the 26 million last year.
To address competition from the region, Singapore has spent 115million U.S. dollars to upgrade Terminal 2, which opened in 1990 with annual handling capacity of 23 million passengers. To spur visitors flow, it has also attracted budget airlines in the region to make Singapore as their destination.
Starting operations in 1981, Changi airport now has three passenger terminals and a budget terminal, serving 83 airlines connecting more than 180 cities through a record 4,300 weekly flights. It is the world's fifth busiest airport.
Chen Gang attributed Singapore's success in the aviation industry to the ingenuity, hard work and spirit of its people. This is the unique Singapore miracle that is hard to replicate by the rest of the world, he added.
Chen Gang stressed that Singapore must continue to take advantage of its prominent human resources and management to innovate, aiming to consolidate its position as the region's avi-hub.
Singapore, which is trying to achieve its tourism 2015 targets for receiving 17 million tourist arrivals and increasing tourism receipts to 30 billion Singapore dollars (about 20.7 billion U.S. dollars), has also been doing its best to make open sky deals with other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-01/25/content_7494206.htm