Asia is about to see a travel boom, and countries within the region are gearing up to take advantage of this surge in demand.
Singapore’s Changi Airport on Wednesday broke ground on its fifth terminal, which is anticipated to be operational within the mid-2030s.
The brand new terminal, which sits on a plot of land 1,080 hectares large, will almost double the scale of Changi Airport’s existing area.
This may allow the airport to handle 140 million passengers per yr from its current capability of 90 million passengers. Changi, which was most recently awarded Skytrax’s “World’s Best Airport” in 2025 for the thirteenth time, welcomed 67.7 million passengers in 2024.
Airports that may handle greater than 100 million passengers annually are classified as mega airports, and three out of the ten existing ones are in Asia, in keeping with airport industry body Airport Council International. These are in Beijing, Tokyo and Shanghai.
ACI projects that air travel will grow nearly 7% over the subsequent 25 years. To deal with the demand, airports within the Asia-Pacific and Middle East regions are poised to undergo extensive development, with combined investments of $240 billion for upgrading existing facilities and constructing recent airports between 2025 and 2035.
Speaking on the groundbreaking event, Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong said the choice to construct Terminal 5 was because “over the long run, air travel is on a rising trajectory, and the majority of the expansion will happen here within the Asia-Pacific region.”
Wong also said that with Terminal 5, Changi will aim to attach with 200 cities, up from the present 170 city links it has now.
“[Changi] has connected our small island nation to the world, and brought the world to Singapore. And this connectivity has powered our growth as an air hub, driving industries like tourism, aerospace and logistics,” Wong said, declaring that the aviation ecosystem now contributes 5% of Singapore’s GDP.
Expansion spree
Competition within the region can be intensifying, Wong noted. For instance, airports in Asia are investing significantly in modernizing their infrastructure and adjoining facilities like entertainment and retail spaces.
Hong Kong International Airport commissioned a 3rd runway in November and is expanding the airport’s Terminal 2. The airport’s goal, it said, is to serve 120 million passengers and handle 10 million tonnes of cargo annually from 2035.
Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport opened a 3rd runway in September 2024, boosting the airport’s capability to handle more flights, following the completion of a recent satellite terminal a yr earlier.
Thailand’s airport operator also revealed an additional “East Expansion” plan to extend the airport’s capability by 2027.
In South Korea, Seoul’s Incheon International Airport accomplished its “Phase 4 expansion” in December, allowing it to handle an annual passenger capability of as much as 106 million from 77 million, and making it the world’s third-largest airport.
Thomas Pellegrin, Transportation, Hospitality and Services Sector Leader from Deloitte Southeast Asia, told CNBC that Asia has grow to be the “barycenter” of air travel growth after the Covid-19 pandemic.
This growth in air travel is as a consequence of the expansion of the center class, whose propensity to fly increases faster than income growth, in addition to the high urbanization rate within the region, which connects people to air transport infrastructure, he noted.
“The regional increase in passenger demand is now forecast at 7.9% within the near term and 5.1% in the long run, which is the best worldwide and well above mature markets,” Pellegrin added.
Because of this Asian airports might want to accommodate roughly twice as many passengers and aircraft by 2043, creating tremendous pressure on the prevailing infrastructure, he said.
Tourism boom for Singapore
Terminal 5 will even feed into Singapore’s plan to increase tourism revenue within the city-state from a record-breaking $29.8 billion in 2024 to $47 billion-$50 billion in the subsequent 15 years.
Its “Tourism 2040” strategy centers on increasing demand from two distinct groups — business and stopover travelers, Grace Fu, Singapore’s minister for sustainability and the environment, said in April.
Particularly, officials aim to triple tourism revenue from business travelers attending meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions, Fu said.
In accordance with Singapore Tourism Board CEO Melissa Ow, transit and transfer passengers currently make up a 3rd of Changi Airport’s overall traffic.
Terminal 5, in addition to the broader Changi East development — which also features a third runway and an industrial zone — will allow Singapore to retain and grow its market share as an air hub, increase connectivity and solidify Changi’s standing as the very best airport on the planet, Deloitte’s Pellegrin said.
“All these effects mix to present Singapore outsized ‘soft power’ internationally.”
