Changi Airport’s Terminal 5 expected to open in mid-2030s

Changi Airport’s Terminal 5 (T5) is expected to open in the mid-2030s. 

Construction of T5 will commence in about two to three years, announced Minister of Transport S Iswaran on Tuesday (May 17) in a speech at the Changi Aviation Summit 2022. Mr Iswaran shared that there is a “renewed impetus” to expand Singapore’s infrastructural capacity with the ongoing recovery of air travel.  

It comes after the T5 construction project was paused in June 2020 because of the uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Mr Iswaran said that Singapore has “taken the opportunity of the two-year hiatus to comprehensively review the T5 design to make it more modular and flexible, and enhance its resilience and sustainability”.  

With Singapore and several other countries’ borders reopening, international air travel has recovered to almost half of pre-pandemic levels. The international air travel is predicted to continue rising in the next few months with countries like Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, and South Korea reopening their borders in April. 

Overall numbers are expected to recover to pre-COVID-19 levels by 2023, one year earlier than previously anticipated, said Mr Iswaran, highlighting a comment made by Mr Willie Walsh, Director-General of International Air Transport Association (IATA). 

IATA predicted that the air traffic in Asia-Pacific will increase annually at 4.5 per cent  for the next 20 years. This will eventually lead to the doubling volume over the next two decades. 

The new T5 is expected to help Singapore to handle the demand. Previously, it was announced that the T5 can handle up to 50 million passengers a year and span a land area of about 667 football fields.