Changi Airport's cargo grew 14% YoY after seven quarters of decline
The growth was largely attributed to strong transhipment performance, especially for flows with China.
Singapore Changi Airport registered 475,000-tonne airfreight throughput from January to March 2024, an increase of 14 percent compared to the same period last year.
"This marks the first quarter of year-on-year growth after seven consecutive quarters of decline," reads the release.
The growth was largely attributed to strong transhipment performance, especially for flows with China. For this period, Changi’s top five air cargo markets were Australia, China, Hong Kong, India and the United States of America.
Changi Airport welcomed two new freighter airlines – Shandong Airlines and Air Incheon, which started 4x weekly Shenzhen-Singapore services on 28 February and twice weekly Seoul-Haikou-Singapore services on 5 March respectively.
Singapore Changi Airport registered 16.5 million passenger movements from January to March 2024, surpassing what was registered for the first quarter of 2019 (Q1 2019) by 0.5 percent. For the quarter, aircraft movements totalled 89,400 (94 percent of the movements in Q1 2019). Traffic to and from most regions recovered to 2019 levels or surpassed them. North America has been the strongest performer, with traffic exceeding pre-Covid levels by 25 percent this quarter.
Lim Ching Kiat, Changi Airport Group’s executive vice president for air hub and cargo development said, “We are delighted to report that passenger movements in Q1 2024 have surpassed pre-Covid volumes. This follows a steady recovery of travel in the past year. CAG has worked closely with airline partners to reinstate flights suspended during the pandemic and add new flights at Changi Airport. The strong traffic performance this quarter was boosted by the hosting of many music concerts in Singapore and the relaxing of visa requirements between China and Singapore.”
Entering April, Changi Airport has seen the commencement of two new passenger service routes – Air Canada’s Vancouver-Singapore service launched on 4 April, and Singapore Airlines’ Singapore-Brussels service on 5 April. Scoot also received the delivery of its first Embraer jets on 15 April, which will enable the airline to expand its network to more regional destinations.
As of 1 April, 95 airlines operate over 6,800 weekly scheduled flights at Changi Airport, connecting Singapore to 153 cities in 48 countries and territories worldwide.