Regional Round-Up
Changi’s T4 a “folly” says Scoot boss
September 1st 2014
Scoot boss, Campbell Wilson, believes Terminal 4 (T4) at Singapore Changi Airport will be a retrograde step and “frankly a folly” when it is completed in 2017. Speaking at a Sydney airline conference last month, Wilson said T4, which will increase Changi’s capacity to 82 million passengers a year, will be two kilometres from the existing terminal and will require a bus transfer for connecting passengers. Read More » Wilson said: “it does not have much space for wide-body aircraft so it will require a lot of bussing. It really detracts from the whole purpose of building a hub airport in the first place. They did not want to call it a budget terminal because they could not get the high spending, high image shopkeepers to set up in a budget terminal, he said. T4 is being built on the site of Changi’s former budget terminal, which was demolished in 2012. “Changi did us a huge favour by closing down the old low-cost terminal,’ Wilson said, “because it has allowed Scoot to co-locate with its alliance partner, Tigerair Singapore. Space for wide-body aircraft is crucial because Scoot operates B777s while our partner flies A320s,” he added.
Separately, Singapore’s competition authority has approved the alliance of Singapore Airlines” (SIA) two budget subsidiaries, Scoot and Tigerair Singapore that allows the two carriers to co-ordinate fares and schedules on routes jointly operated by them. Scoot, established in 2012 and fully owned by SIA, is a medium and long-haul budget operator with a network that complements the short-haul operations of Tigerair Singapore. With Anti-Trust Immunity clearance, the two airlines can develop interline co-operation and implement compatible pricing, scheduling, marketing campaigns and systems integration.
