SINGAPORE (Feb 27): More often than not, I find myself in a mad dash for the airport. It begins at home, with me bunging possessions into luggage, then frantically trying to get hold of a cab, and telling the driver, breathlessly, to please get me to there in 15 minutes before the check-in desks close. But somehow, once I reach the ground agent and hand over my passport, a calm settles over me. I take time to appreciate the bronze Kinetic Rain installation, or wander slowly towards immigration and the gates, looking in the shops even though I have nothing to buy. Once or twice, I was so relaxed browsing at the bookstore that I didn’t realise it was already time to board.

It could be the familiarity of a home airport or it could just be the way Changi has been designed. Large signs tell me where the gates are and how long it would take me to walk over. The carpeting absorbs noise and, together with the soft lighting, background music, shops and shrubbery, creates a cosy, stress-free environment. Importantly, passport control and security checks are decentralised, which does away with long queues. All this compares well against the utilitarian drabness and chaos at many other airports, an unpleasant experience often compounded by security checks and lengthy flight delays.

I may be biased, so take it from more than 13 million other travellers from around the world. Changi Airport has consistently been voted the world’s best in surveys by Skytrax. It isn’t just about the aesthetics, of course. According to the UK-based consultancy, the survey asks travellers dozens of questions about a range of issues that includes the ease of getting to and from the airport, the experience at immigration and security screening, and facilities such as disabled access, washrooms, entertainment and rest areas.

Anxiety-free airport

Indeed, Changi is “friendly” to both arriving and departing travellers, observes Tai Lee Siang, an architect and chairman of the World Green Building Council. It is also efficient, with minimal flight delays or other holdups. An anxiety-free experience, from check-in to passport control and security checks, is key, Tai says.

To him, one of the important features an airport should have is clear signage and a layout that helps alleviate any stress associated with travelling. “What your eyes can see gives you a sense of security,” he explains. This includes having boarding gates within sight. Many airports are constructed as a central building with satellite terminals that require travellers to take an airport rail, for instance, making it difficult to estimate the time and distance to the boarding gates.

Tai travels at least once a month, both within Asia and farther out. While Changi is one of his favourite airports, he also appreciates Haneda airport for being well-organised, and likes Hong Kong International for its vibrancy and how everything — shops, gates — is visible. “There are no dead ends.”

Aviation is critical to economic development. With the burgeoning numbers of both business and leisure travellers criss-crossing the globe, and competition among cities and their airports for both airlines and passengers, operators of the major international airports have to up their game. How much does a pleasant airport experience count in a traveller’s choice of transit and, consequently, airline?

Is bigger better?

Take the Middle East, where over the past decade the Gulf countries, led by Dubai, have been aggressively expanding their airlines and airports in order to make themselves the world’s centre for travel. It also helps that more than half of the world’s population lives within an eight-hour flight radius. Emirates has flown high on its massive fleet of modern A380s with commendable inflight services; last year, the airline was voted the world’s top airline for the fourth year running.

According to an Oxford Economics report prepared for Emirates and Dubai Airports, the aviation sector, including tourism benefits, accounted for 26.7% of Dubai’s GDP in 2013. That share is estimated to grow to 37.5% in 2020, and 44.7% in 2030. The report also noted that should airport capacity be constrained, or if there is no expansion beyond 2020, the economic benefits would be 13% less.

On a recent trip, I’d transited via Dubai and told myself it’ll be the last time I’d do so. To be sure, the airport is structurally beautiful; there are shops, cafés and a children’s playground for distraction from a long transit; and the Emirates terminal has a wall of strollers for tired kids. With high ceilings and expansive concourses, the airport is built to accommodate 90 million passengers annually, and even at 3am it’s full of people milling around. But the sheer number of passengers going through the airport also means long, slow-moving queues at immigration and security. And, the sprawl can be impersonal and exhausting for jet-lagged travellers.

Shopping, duty-free or otherwise, has become a bigger component at airports. Non-aeronautical revenues can form the bulk of an airport operator’s turnover. At Changi, concession sales are among the world’s highest for an airport, coming in at $2.2 billion for the airport operator’s FY2015/FY2016.

But it is still a distraction at best for the frequent traveller facing flight delays. “For business travel, time is essential. The purpose of flying is to get to the destination as fast as possible,” says Shanghai-based relocation specialist Jane Teng. She says that while the Chinese airports are often very busy, they do offer adequate services and facilities. However, it is the recurrent flight delays and cancellations that bug her.

Indeed, air traffic congestion, while a particular problem in China owing to military control of the airspace, is a pressing issue everywhere as air travel grows. Even as airport infrastructure expands, there must be accompanying improvements in air traffic management. There is also pressure for airports to adopt the latest in technology — ranging from air traffic control software to customer- service robots — in order to optimise the flow of air traffic as well as passengers.

Changi Airport has been awarding contracts for its expansion, which includes a three-runway system. It is also looking to build a second air traffic control tower to support higher traffic; by the early 2020s, there will be five terminals that can handle some 150 million passengers annually. In fact, Changi Airport Group’s spokesman Ivan Tan says the airport operator has started the process of selecting its design partners for Terminal 5. But as Changi Airport doubles in size, can it retain the warmth and charm that has made it world-famous?

Differing dynamics

In 1975, plans for Changi Airport were considered ambitious. But together with the expansion of Singapore Airlines, it has made itself a regional air hub. Since starting operations in 1981, Changi has raised the bar for how airports should be. Yet, growth has started to slow in recent years and the airport’s path is clearly diverging from that of the national carrier.

SIA has seen its business cannibalised on all fronts: The budget airlines ate away at its regional business; the Gulf carriers lured some of its longhaul passengers away; and now the Chinese airlines are fast expanding in another key market, Australia. And even as Singapore saw record tourist arrivals in 2016, there are limits to growth, no matter how many times attractions are revamped — the city state’s size constrains options for expansion, observers say.

Hubs such as Changi could be on the wane, industry observers say. The latest aircraft types, the extra-longhaul variants of Airbus’ A350 and Boeing’s 787, are enabling airlines to operate direct flights between city pairs that were not possible before.

Air Canada operates from Vancouver to Brisbane using the 787-9, while Qantas Airways is set to launch flights between Perth and London next March with the same aircraft type. Last October, SIA launched a nonstop flight between Singapore and San Francisco using the A350-900, bypassing the hubs in North Asia.

In 2016, Changi handled nearly 59 million passengers on an average of 1,000 flights a day. That’s a 5.8% growth from the year before. There was a strong rebound in travel immediately after the global financial crisis, when passenger numbers rose 13% y-o-y in 2010 and about 10% in 2011 and 2012. In 2013, growth was 5%; it fell to just 0.75% in 2014, and 2.5% in 2015.

To be sure, Singapore has pushed for the airport to become a transit hub — a city tour, foot massages in chairs on the way to the boarding gates, movies and WiFi are among the free diversions for travellers waiting for a connection. How will Terminal 5, set to be one of the largest in the world, be a part of this? Will it revive Changi’s growth?

It’s difficult to see how Terminal 5, being so large, would be like the current three terminals.

So far, it seems the terminal’s design priority is the ease of passenger movements. The transport ministry’s concept plan indicates a large main terminal building that allows travellers to access their gates easily.

For now, though, on arriving at any of the Changi terminals, stepping out of the aerobridge and onto the carpet, the noise of the aircraft giving way to a quiet hum, I know I’m home.

This article appeared in Issue 767 (Feb 20) of The Edge Singapore.