Travellers flying out of Changi Airport to pay higher fees, charges from Nov 1

Kok Yufeng Transport Correspondent

Sep 15, 2022 04:28 pm

Passengers flying out of Changi will have to pay an extra $6.90 in airport charges from November 1, as international air travel continues to recover from the effects of Covid-19.

Passengers on flights originating from Changi currently pay a departure fee of $52.30, comprising a $35.40 passenger service and security fee collected by Changi Airport Group (CAG), as well as a $6.10 aviation levy and a $10.80 airport development levy collected by the Government.

With the fee hike announced on Thursday, the total departure fee will go up to $59.20 from November 1, $62.20 from April 2023 and $65.20 from April 2024.

Passengers whose air tickets have already been issued before November 1 will not pay the higher fees and levies, said the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) and CAG in a joint statement.

There will be no change to the departure fee for transit passengers, who will continue to pay $9 in airport charges for each flight.

Meanwhile, airlines will also have to pay more in aircraft parking and landing fees, CAAS and CAG said.

The police were alerted to theft from two shops at the Changi Airport transit area on Feb 21.

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The statement said that the fees and levies charged will go towards CAG's operations and current infrastructure upgrading of terminals and future development plans, and the air hub development and regulatory functions of CAAS.

Airport charges at Changi were last revised in 2018, and the authorities had held off on further increases during the pandemic.

The latest fee hike comes during the same week that Changi Airport Terminal 4 welcomed its first flights on Tuesday after it was shut in May 2020 due to plummeted air traffic at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The reopening of T4, which has a handling capacity of 16 million passengers a year, will add to Changi Airport's capacity, as will the reopening of the southern half of Terminal 2 from Oct 11.

This will restore Changi Airport's handling capacity to its pre-Covid-19 level of 70 million passengers a year.

Changi is not alone in increasing its fees, after more than two years of international border restrictions ate into the revenues of airports worldwide.

In November last year, Schiphol airport in Amsterdam announced plans to increase the fees levied on airlines by 37 per cent over the next three years - a move that drew sharp rebuke from the International Air Transport Association (IATA).

Earlier this month, Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf also reported that the Dutch government plans to more than triple the country's air passenger tax in January next year to €28.58 (S$40), up from €7.95 currently.