The Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore has unveiled plans to increase Changi Airport’s capacity by 40 per cent. Specifically, it aims to increase the number of aircraft the airport handles in a year to 430,000. From January to November 2012, Changi Airport handled 295,000 aircraft. Moreover, it also seeks to expand total passenger capacity at the airport by 29 per cent with the goal of reaching 85 million passengers per year by 2017 with the commissioning of Terminal 4. In 2012, Changi Airport’s passenger capacity was 50 million due primarily to an increase in the operations of low-cost carriers and intra-Asia flights. In particular, Indonesia has emerged as the biggest destination of air traffic to and from Changi Airport: it accounted for 13.4 per cent of total traffic handled at Changi Airport. In the meantime, the measures that the Civil Aviation Authority has already deployed include reducing the intervals for take-offs and landings from 120 to 90 seconds and decreasing the duration of scheduled closures of a runway by leveraging information technology systems to improve the inspection process.
