Have your say and vote for your favorite in our global Facebook poll.
Singapore eyes a fourth airport terminal
Growing air passenger traffic calls for Changi Airport to build a fourth airport terminal by the end of the decade
Changi Airport is likely to add a fourth terminal before the end of the decade. Talk of Singapore adding a fourth airport terminal is not new.
The idea was first floated in 2008, but now aviation experts are estimating that it could be built within this decade, and take the location currently occupied by the Budget Terminal.
According to a report by Channel News Asia, aviation analysts expect passenger traffic to grow by five percent each year when the ASEAN Open Skies agreement comes into force by 2015.
"We still have some capacity with Terminal 3 still not being maximized yet, there's still a lot of room there," says Shukor Yusof, aviation analyst with Standard & Poor's.
"But beyond that, obviously there is going to be a need to expand the airport with the new terminal, given the increase in low-cost travel, even in the expansion of new discount carriers in the region."
The Open Skies agreement will fully liberalize air travel between the grouping's 10 member states.
Singapore is now directly connected to all nine of its ASEAN neighbors following the recent launch of Lao Airlines' thrice-weekly service between Singapore and Vientiane.
As for the proposed new terminal's location, there are two potential sites.
One option would be to build the terminal along Changi Coast Road. The second would be to take over the plot currently occupied by the Budget Terminal.
If this goes ahead, all budget flights will likely be run out of Terminals 1 and 2.
Currently, the existing terminals are estimated to handle 70 million passengers annually.
In the first 11 months of 2011, Changi Airport registered more than 42 million passenger movements, almost as many as total for the whole of 2010.
