ETW Staff – Mumbai
Singapore Changi Airport has announced it annual data, revealing a record 55.4 million passengers and about 346,300 landings and take-offs in 2015. Registering 3.44 million Indian passenger movements, India remains Changi Airport’s seventh largest country market. Mumbai was Changi’s fourth fastest growing route (+8.2 per cent on-year) among destinations with at least half a million passengers handled in 2015. Bangkok, Colombo and Guangzhou took the top three spots. In December 2015 alone, Mumbai saw close to 11 per cent increase in traffic.
The addition of a new service to Lucknow has increased the total number of Changi’s city links to India to 13, strengthening the airport’s position as the most connected airport in Southeast Asia to India. In terms of traffic, the top five Indian cities for Changi Airport are Mumbai, Chennai, New Delhi, Bengaluru and Tiruchirappalli.
Changi Airport also identified India as fourth amongst the top five nationalities by concession sale in 2015, with 5.9 per cent of retail sales (+4.2 per cent on-year) being contributed by Indian passenger traffic during the year. The annual data also reveals that favourite buys for Indian passengers last year were liquor and tobacco, perfumes and cosmetics followed by confectionaries, electronics and jewellery.
December 2015 was the busiest month for Changi Airport in terms of retail sales, with international brands like Zara and Samsung launching their first airport stores in Singapore and other promotions like Star Wars plush toys adding to the surge in the number of passengers.
Lee Seow Hiang, CEO, Changi Airport Group, said, “2015 was a year of two halves for Changi Airport. Following 2014, which saw a number of airline incidents in the region and depressed yields for many regional carriers, we had a relatively weak first six months with flat growth for the period. Nevertheless, we pressed on to actively woo new airlines and seek growth opportunities with existing ones, and our efforts have yielded some positive outcomes. We have seen both full-service and low-cost carriers add capacity in recent months and this has resulted in stronger passenger growth of about five per cent for the second half of the year.”
“Closer to our hub, Asia continues to present growth opportunities, with untapped tourism potential in many parts of the continent, and growing affluence in the emerging economies driving air travel. Changi Airport is well placed to capture future growth with our expanding network, including many secondary cities, to key markets like China, India and Indonesia,” added Seow Hiang.