Singapore Airport is known for its fountains, waterfalls, butterfly garden, and cinema. The country’s authorities report that a new terminal will soon appear in the air harbor.
Singapore Changi Airport has long been considered a tourist destination in its own right. For a decade, it has remained undefeated in Skytrax’s annual “World’s Best Airports” award, losing its crown only to Qatar’s Hamad International Airport in 2021. In 2022, he was ranked third on the list.
Now Singaporean officials intend to enlarge the airport and build Terminal 5. Officials promise that this place will be an extension of Singapore and not just another element of transport infrastructure. Terminal 5 will increase capacity by approximately 50 million passengers per year. That’s a big number considering its four operational passenger terminals are capable of handling around 82 million passengers a year.
The design is developed jointly with international architectural firms KPF and Heatherwick Studio.
The concept of the new terminal will be a series of blocks. This means that there will be not just one giant building, but several buildings – from small to large sites.
Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong noted that T5 will be as big as all four existing terminals combined. Construction will start in about two years and the facility is expected to open in the mid-2030s. With an area of 1080 hectares, it will have a system of three runways and will be connected to four other terminals.
Changi Airport handled 68.3 million passengers in 2019, before the pandemic. After easing quarantine and testing requirements, passenger traffic reached 55 percent of pre-pandemic levels in July 2022, according to official airport figures.
Changi Airport opened in 1981. The airport has a swimming pool, a news center, a cinema and a sports arena, a 12-meter high mega slide, and a butterfly garden. The main attraction here is the 40-meter HSBC rain vortex, which cascades through a huge window in the center of the structure and is considered the world’s tallest indoor waterfall. It also has an 11-screen IMAX theater and Shiseido Forest Valley, a four-story garden with walking trails surrounded by over 235,000 square feet of the landscape surrounding the Vortex Falls.