Singapore Airport replaces Hong Kong Airport as the busiest airport in Asia Pacific? Aviation analysis company Ruisiyu believes that Singapore is only a short-term leader, and Hong Kong cannot be replaced for the time being.
In the second quarter of 2022, Singapore Airport topped the Asia-Pacific with a capacity of 7.2 million passengers. The passenger capacity is more than double the 3.2 million passengers in Delhi and Bangkok, and 12 times the 600,000 passengers at Hong Kong Airport.
Hong Kong Airport, which has always been proud of the Asia-Pacific region and even the world's busiest airports, did not even enter the top 10 this time.
Taking advantage of this momentum, Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong also announced that he would invest trillions of dollars to carry out the "largest ever" reconstruction of the capital Changi Airport.
The reconstruction plan is to build Changi Airport into a "monster level" in 10 years, and when completed, it is expected to carry 50 million passengers per year, which is close to the scale of Hong Kong Airport.
However, aviation analytics firm Resys believes that Singapore is only leading in the short term.
Although Singapore Airport has the world's largest indoor waterfall, the location is also good. However, Hong Kong is located in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, backed by Chinese mainland, close to Japan and South Korea, close to North America and South America, and Hong Kong's status as an international aviation hub cannot be replaced by Singapore.
Analysts believe that Hong Kong airport is also being remodeled and is expected to be completed in 2024. Hong Kong's new airport was remodeled 10 years before Singapore's. Once the Hong Kong airport is rebuilt and revitalized, Singapore will be empty after such a big bet to build an airport.
At the same time, Ruisiyu also reminded Hong Kong that the reconstruction of Singapore Airport is expected to become an airport template in the post-epidemic era, and many places are worth referencing. The most critical part of this is that it improves the "no-touch" system.
The "no-touch" system includes isolation passages, unmanned automatic baggage handling, laser-guided unmanned air bridges, etc., and they also plan to replace aviation towers with monitors and cameras. If necessary, Terminal 5 of the new airport can also be divided into small independent terminals.
The enhancement of this "no-touch" system guarantees that in the event of a large-scale infectious disease, it will not affect flight.
Singapore and Hong Kong are two Asian brothers who love to compete, from talent and economy to airport construction and traffic. Analysts believe that whoever can be more open will have more advantages in the competition.
