Singapore Changi Airport has resumed work on its Terminal 5 project following a two-year delay caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The key stakeholders – Singapore’s Ministry of Transport (MOT), the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) and operator Changi Airport Group – used the downtime ‘to comprehensively review the T5 design to make it more modular, resilient and sustainable’.
Construction of T5 will begin within the next two years, with the new terminal scheduled to be operational by the mid-2030s. It will be located within the 1,080-hectare Changi East development, which is almost as big as the land area of today’s Changi Airport. The terminal will be able to handle about 50 million passengers per year and will be designed with the flexibility to be built in two phases, in line with traffic growth.
Drawing on lessons learnt from the pandemic, T5 will be designed with the flexibility to operate as smaller sub-terminals when needed, with space that could be converted for use during contingencies, such as for testing operations or the segregation of high-risk passengers.
Specialised provisions to reduce the transmission of diseases will also be deployed in T5. These include contactless systems at passenger touchpoints, as well as enhanced ventilation systems that can be activated during a pandemic to increase the use of fresh air and minimise the mixing of air.
A green and sustainable terminal building
T5 will be a Green Mark Platinum Super Low Energy Building as certified by the Building and Construction Authority. Solar panels, smart building management systems, and district cooling combined with thermal energy storage will be deployed in the terminal building.
The new terminal will also be ready for viable alternative fuels including the use of Sustainable Aviation Fuel, and for the provision of fixed ground power and cooling for aircraft parked at the gates.
Image: Changi Airport Group
