Changi Airport Group, EVP, Air Hub & Cargo Development, Ching Kiat Lim at the CAPA Airline Leader Summit Asia 2025

Transcript

Ching Kiat Lim:This year, Changi Airport, we've recovered to pre-COVID levels of 68 million traffic per year and the momentum continues to grow. So for the first 6 months of this year, our traffic is still growing at 4%, which we think is a very steady growth. I think there are a few key trends that we see, as mentioned by some of the conference speakers, the booking cycles tend to be shorter these days than pre-COVID. We also saw that I think there's now this new category that is coming up that is more like premium leisure, that is filling up the economy, the business class seats and the premium economy seats as well. So I think some of these things are changing for Changi. I think we are focused on having a diversified base of traffic coming from different markets because different markets go through different cycles. So just for the quarter that just went by, Our traffic between Singapore and Jakarta, Singapore and Shanghai are particularly strong, chalking up high single digits or double digit of growth. So things like that, we'll just keep continuing to make sure that our routes, we are growing across the different regions in a balanced manner. I think that's the way we are continuing to focus on. For cargo, I think this year is quite interesting. I think initially when the tariff situation came up, we were all planning like what would the scenario be? But the cargo growth continues to be strong and we are continuing to be focused on growing the market. With our partners. So for cargo, I think there are a few verticals that Changi constantly works on, like temperature control cargo, pharmaceutical, e-commerce, aerospace parts, advanced materials like semiconductor parts. I think those are verticals that we continue to work on and we want to build deeper relationship and deeper capabilities with our partners. For example, for pharmaceutical, we have set up a Pharma@Singapore forum where the pharma producers and the logistics providers can come together and frequently think of how to do better. And we are also Asia's largest CEIV-certified air cargo community. So I think these are efforts we are trying to push for cargo. For— in terms of technology and passenger experience, I think last year we were quite pleased to roll out the passportless immigration. So many of our guests at today's conference came through that. I think those are areas we are continuing to work on, but we are looking at other areas where we are deploying robotics solution and AI solution to work together with our partners. So one of the examples is Aircraft 360, where we are using sensors and predictive technology to look at aircraft turnaround at our gates so that in terms of we can achieve faster aircraft turnaround, it means better asset utilization by the airline and also better use of our infrastructure at Changi. Moving forward, we are also looking at other areas like robotics, like autonomous baggage tractors. I think those are areas where we want to continue our technology advancements in. Sustainability is a key area of focus for us. I think we have set targets in terms of our Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions and also to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2040. There are 4 areas that we are working on. Number one is supporting— continue to support sustainable aviation fuel adoption in Singapore. Number 2, in terms of building efficiency and energy efficiency. So we are deploying solar panels across all our buildings and soon by the end of the deployment, we will have the largest single-site deployment of solar panels in Singapore. Electrification of airside vehicles is another area we are focusing on. So for the airport, we are expanding the number of charging points so that to help our partners achieve full electrification for all new airside vehicles. And last area for sustainability is in terms of waste management. Where we are focusing on. The other busy project for Changi is Terminal 5. This year we broke ground for Terminal 5. The aim for by the middle of next decade when Terminal 5 is built, you add another 50 million passenger capacity per year on top of today's 90 MPPA handling capacity. And last of all, for in terms of new routes, We are constantly deepening our links. So for the big markets like China, India, Indonesia, we are constantly looking to grow into new secondary cities. Recently, the flight from Zhangjiajie arrived from China, and Scoot will be flying to new places like Palembang, Semarang, Labuan Bajo in the coming, in the coming months. Next week, especially exciting new development is Miad Mongolia's new flight. from Ulaanbaatar to Singapore. So I think these are areas that while we grow our traditional trunk routes, we are looking to grow into new areas and new cities and new countries. Yes, we are very, very happy for CAPA's Leadership Summit to be back in Singapore again after a few years' break. I think especially back here in Sentosa in Capella, all the guests are quite familiar with this venue. And you can see from the strong turnout today that people are very happy that this event is back. So we hope to keep this event here. For many years to come.

Copyright policy: All transcripts on this site are the copyright of CAPA - Centre for Aviation. Our reproduction policy is as follows: you may quote up to 400 words of any transcript on the condition that you attribute the transcript to CAPA - Centre for Aviation and link to the original video page. All other use is prohibited. While we aim for 100% accuracy in the transcript, there may be some minor transcribing errors.