Singapore’s Changi Airport has re-established its link to all South Asian cities to the pre-pandemic level and added Pune to its network, reporting a strong rebound in passenger traffic, PTI reported on Sunday. Up to 150,000 passengers are passing through Changi Airport daily, with about a million each week, or about 75 per cent of the average weekly passenger pre-pandemic, The Straits Times newspaper quoted Transport Minister S Iswaran.

The airport has witnessed a strong rebound in passenger traffic as the number of passengers and flight movements have surged over the months with Australia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand being the top traffic markets in the first 10 months. In this duration, the airport also handled 23.6 million passengers, representing 42 per cent of its pre-Covid-19 traffic, the news agency reported.

Airport added Pune as new destination

“For the South Asia market, apart from re-establishing all pre-Covid-19 city links, Changi added a new one to Pune on December 2,” Changi Airport Group (CAG) said, adding, “Passenger traffic to and from North America has rebounded strongly to exceed pre-pandemic levels.”

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Apart from North America, the strongest passenger traffic recovery also came from South Asia and Europe, PTI reported.

2022 – Year of ‘Strong Recovery’

The daily traffic is more than twice the number that passed through the airport when Singapore first reopened its borders to vaccinated travellers in April. CAG said 2022 had been a year of “strong recovery”, as the number of passengers and flight movements steadily climbed over the months.

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“As of the first week of December 2022, 95 airlines operated over 5,500 weekly scheduled flights at Changi Airport, connecting Singapore to some 140 cities in 48 countries and territories worldwide,” it said, adding this was 82 per cent of the pre-pandemic connectivity, the PTI report stated.