Changi Airport’s Q4 passenger traffic reaches 90% of pre-pandemic level

SINGAPORE Changi Airport’s passenger traffic has recovered to near pre-Covid levels, with growth registered across all markets in 2023.

For the fourth quarter of 2023, Changi handled 16.1 million passenger movements, surpassing 90 per cent of the level recorded in 2019, said Changi Airport Group (CAG) on Wednesday (Jan 24).

“The upswing in travel was fuelled by strong outbound travel demand as well as growing inbound travel,” said Lim Ching Kiat, CAG’s executive vice-president for air hub and cargo development.

December was the busiest month for Changi in 2023, with 5.8 million passenger movements or 91 per cent of traffic in December 2019.

Strong traffic growth in Q4 boosted the airport’s full-year performance, which came to 58.9 million passenger movements, representing 86 per cent of the 2019 full-year figure.

CAG added that aircraft movements in the year stood at 328,000, or 85.9 per cent of the 382,000 in 2019.

While passenger traffic across all regions has been recovering to pre-Covid levels, the growth in Asia was “especially strong”, said Lim.

The figure for North-east Asia was more than four times that of 2022, largely led by significant travel increases between China and Singapore. South-east Asia posted a 72 per cent growth on the year.

Traffic in the North America region exceeded 2019 levels by more than 25 per cent while Europe, the South-west Pacific and South Asia were “close to full recovery”, said CAG, registering over 90 per cent of 2019 traffic.

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Changi’s top five passenger markets for the year were Indonesia, Malaysia, Australia, Thailand and India.

Among its top 10 markets, China, Japan and South Korea were the fastest-growing compared to 2022 levels. China ranked sixth in 2023, with four million passenger movements.

On the cargo front, the airport’s airfreight throughput stood at 1.74 million tonnes for 2023, down 6 per cent on the year amid a volatile global economic environment. China, Australia, Hong Kong, the US and India were Changi’s top five air cargo markets for the year.

“We step into 2024 hopeful of making a full recovery back to Changi Airport’s pre-Covid connectivity and traffic levels,” Lim said.

As at January 2024, 93 airlines operate over 6,700 weekly scheduled flights at Changi Airport. These flight movements connect Singapore to 154 cities in 49 regions worldwide, CAG said.