Changi Airport, Singapore crossed the 80% recovery barrier, recording 4.63 million passenger movements in March this year.
This was 82.2% of the 5.63 million passengers who passed through the airport in March 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic began.
With airline capacity recovering to levels before health restrictions in Asia, the flow of profits is now being felt at Singapore Changi Airport, the region’s main hub.
Without an internal market to continue operating, the airport suffered the most during the pandemic, falling from a high of 68.3 million passengers in 2019 to just 3 million in 2021.
Passenger numbers grew by 32.2 million last year, and with a strong start to the year, a strong second-half recovery towards pre-COVID levels is forecast.
In 2022, Singapore Airlines had the highest number of passengers, followed by Scoot, Jetstar Asia, AirAsia and Qantas.
In the first three months of 2023, Singapore Changi will handle 13 million passengers, compared to 16.4 million in the first quarter of 2019; This was four times higher than the first quarter of the previous year and 79% compared to the same period in 2019, with the top traffic markets being Australia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.
The airport said there was also a strong improvement in passenger flows to Greater China, mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macao, with traffic doubling compared to the previous quarter.
At the end of the first quarter, Changi Airport was serving 102 airlines operating more than 6,000 weekly scheduled flights, connecting Singapore to 145 cities in 49 countries and territories.
With the easing of global travel restrictions, the airport added two new airlines to its arrivals board, Air Macau and Malaysia Airlines’ low-cost subsidiary Firefly, according to information from SimplyFlying.
