Singapore’s Changi Airport was regarded as world’s best but how is it handling coronavirus pandemic?
- Changi and other airports in Asia built to awe visitors are now focused on serving as the first lines of defence against the spread of Covid-19
- Grounded aeroplanes sit idle on the tarmac in tight formations and two of the four terminals have been closed
Flying is often an afterthought when visiting Singapore’s Changi Airport. With its butterfly and orchid gardens, custom-made airport fragrance and glass-domed mall housing the world’s tallest indoor waterfall, the experience is considered the gold standard of international airports – a stark example of everything it’s austere American counterparts are not.
But the airport crowned the world’s best eight years running has been humbled by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Passenger traffic has plunged 99 per cent since April. The groundbreaking of a fifth terminal on a plot of land roughly the size of Los Angeles International Airport was shelved for two years. And airport executives, more accustomed to showing off whimsical amenities like a five-storey double helix playground, are instead mustering enthusiasm for new safety measures such as a roving disinfectant-misting robot, contactless elevator buttons and ultraviolet-cleansing escalator handrails.
Reduced to a trickle of passengers, Changi and other airports in Asia built to awe visitors are now focused on serving as the first lines of defence in the against the spread of Covid-19. It is less these days about conjuring serenity amid grandeur than it is laying out an uneasy tableau of temperature screenings, quarantine notices and swab testing.
Changi and its peers such as Hong Kong International Airport and South Korea’s Incheon International Airport could operate as shells of themselves in the months, and perhaps, years to come, prompting a reshuffling of the competitive landscape and a reimagining of the role of airports in a much-changed world.
“Until the pandemic is overcome, the temptation is to think that frills are unnecessary, and that all one needs is a safe and secure way to get to one’s flight,” said Alan Tan, an aviation industry expert at the National University of Singapore. “But the airport that can find the sweet spot in between protecting passengers’ health and providing a comfortable experience will emerge as the hub of choice.”
The existential crisis marks a dramatic reversal for the aviation industry in Asia, which was in the middle of the biggest expansion in the world less than one year ago.