Changi Airport's 2023 passenger traffic rebounds to 86% of pre-Covid-19 levels

Some 58.9 million passengers passed through Changi Airport in 2023, rebounding to 86 per cent of traffic levels seen before the Covid-19 pandemic.

- Esther Loi

This was also an 83 per cent increase from the 32.2 million passengers the airport handled in 2022.

In 2019, before the pandemic hit, the airport registered 68.3 million passenger movements.

About 328,000 flights took off from or landed at Changi Airport in 2023, according to the latest figures released by airport operator Changi Airport Group (CAG) on Jan 24. It handled 382,000 flights in 2019.

Between October and December 2023, the airport recorded 16.1 million passenger movements, surpassing 90 per cent of pre-pandemic levels.

December was the busiest month of the year for Changi Airport, with 5.8 million passengers moving through it. This was 91 per cent of traffic levels in December 2019.

The airport recorded its busiest day of the year on Dec 22, the Friday before Christmas, with 203,000 passengers passing through its terminals.

In December, 30,400 flights landed at or departed from Changi Airport.

CAG said all regions to which the airport is connected are recording healthy recovery in passenger traffic from pre-pandemic levels. North America was the region that recorded the greatest growth of more than 25 per cent compared with 2019.

Meanwhile, Europe, the South-west Pacific (comprising Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands such as Fiji) and South Asia are near full recovery, rebounding to more than 90 per cent of passenger traffic levels in 2019.

Compared with 2022, North-east Asia was Changi Airport’s leading region in 2023, with passenger traffic increasing more than four times from that of the previous year. This was mostly due to a rise in travel between China and Singapore, said CAG.