Changi Airport Group honoured its airline partners with a total of 25 awards for contributing to the growth of the Singapore air hub. Photo credits to Changi Airport Group.

At the 12th Changi Airlines Awards event held at the St Regis Singapore on 27 April 2017, Changi Airport Group (CAG) recognised its top airline partners, whose efforts have contributed significantly to the growth and development of Singapore as an air hub. A total of 25 awards were given out. The night’s awardees included Jetstar Group, AirAsia Group, and Cathay Pacific, Singapore Airlines Group and DHL Express.

Speaking at the awards event, Mr Lee Seow Hiang, Chief Executive Officer of CAG said, “As we celebrate our success, we will continue to transform Changi Airport, in preparation for challenges in the future. We will do so by catering supply for future growth, as well as working with our partners to grow sustainable demand for aviation services.” Mr Lee added, “In the longer term, CAG believes in pursuing sustainable growth with our partners. We are cultivating new passenger segments for our airline partners to benefit from a steady pipeline of traffic into the future. These include Meeting, Incentives, Conventions and Exhibitions (MICE) as well as the forthcoming low-cost long-haul travel services by Scoot and Norwegian to Athens and London respectively.”

A key winner of the night was DHL Express, which was presented the “Partner of the Year” award. Through their strong partnership with CAG, DHL Express successfully launched their fully-automated South Asia Hub at Changi Airfreight Centre in October 2016. The new addition to DHL Express operations has tripled their cargo handling capacity to 628 tonnes during peak processing window, and increased their parcel-sorting speed by six-fold to 24,000 shipments and documents per hour.

Mr Sean Wall, Executive Vice President, Network Operations and Aviation, DHL Express Asia Pacific said “Singapore remains a strategic node in our global network.” He noted that “the South Asia Hub in Singapore has allowed us to add more network flights in and out of the country and to meet our customers’ needs, and to further capitalise on the country’s prime position for regional and global trade.”

This spirit of leveraging strong partnerships was further highlighted by Mr Lee, who spoke about the Airport Collaborative Decision Making (ACDM) initiative. The ACDM initiative has helped Changi Airport add capacity to the existing airport eco-system. Mr Lee attributed the success of the ACDM to the support from all airline, ground handling and airport partners. He noted, “As a result, there has been a reduction of 90 seconds in the average taxiing time for departing flights during peak hours. Translating into fuel savings for airlines.”

It is through the strengthening of partnerships with the airport community that Changi Airport delivered yet another positive year in 2016 with a record-breaking 58.7 million passengers passing through its gates. That is a growth of 5.9% year-on-year. Having closed a strong first quarter in 2017, the airport is on track to receive 60 million passengers in 2017.