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Airlines that carried the most passengers and cargo through Singapore Changi Airport, as well as airlines that achieved the highest year-on-year growth in passenger and cargo, were honoured at Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore’s (CAAS) third consecutive Changi Airline Awards, held on 12 June 2008 in Singapore.
This event came against a most challenging aviation landscape, where airlines are taking on various strategies to weather through record-high fuel prices and slowing traffic growth. To this, Guest-of-Honour, Minister Raymond Lim, urged airlines to leverage on new traffic development opportunities emerging in Singapore through growing their traffic at Changi, mounting more new services and making Singapore the hub of choice for their operations.
Minister Lim also affirmed Changi’s support for the airlines, saying that Changi would continue to introduce initiatives that would strengthen the strong partnership, as well as to ensure that new initiatives are aligned to the airlines’ needs.
With Changi’s success closely intertwined with that of its airline partners, CAAS gave away 30 awards under four categories of the Changi Airline Awards, in recognition of their contribution to the growth of Changi Airport. Winners each received a specially sculptured trophy that symbolises the strong partnership between CAAS and its airline partners.
The four award categories are ‘Top 10 Airlines by Passenger Carriage’, ‘Top 10 Airlines by Cargo Carriage’, ‘Top 5 Airlines by Growth in Passenger Carriage’ and ‘Top 5 Airlines by Growth in Cargo Carriage’. The selection criteria were based on the airlines’ total traffic (passenger/cargo) through Changi and percentage growth rate of total traffic (passenger/cargo) in 2007 compared to the year before. Tribute was also paid to the Board of Airline Representatives (BAR) and the Airline Operators Committee (AOC), with a Special Appreciation Award for each organisation.
Airlines that handled the highest passenger traffic at Changi were accorded the ‘Top 10 Airlines by Passenger Carriage’ award. The winners were (in alphabetical order): Cathay Pacific, Emirates, Garuda Indonesia, Jetstar Asia,Malaysia Airlines, Qantas Airways, Singapore Airlines, SilkAir, Thai Airways and Tiger Airways. Except for Jetstar Asia, which is the second-time winner, the rest of the airlines in this category have held the award for three consecutive years.
Similarly, airlines which flew the most cargo through Changi Airport were awarded the ‘Top 10 Airlines by Cargo Carriage’ award. These awards went to: Asiana Airlines, Cathay Pacific, China Airlines, Emirates, EVA Airways, FederalExpress, Japan Airlines, Korean Air, Qantas Airways and Singapore Airlines Cargo. Asiana Airlines is a first-time winner in this category.
The ‘Top 5 Airlines by Growth in Passenger Carriage’ and ‘Top 5 Airlines by Growth in Cargo Carriage’ categories recognised airlines that registered the greatest growth in terms of passenger and cargo carriage in 2007. In the passenger category, Air Zimbabwe, Jet Airways and Xiamen Airlines were new winners. Their win can be attributed to strong growth in markets such as India and China, which they operate flights to, from Singapore. The three airlines received the award alongside Tiger Airways and Transaero Airlines.
For the cargo category, all five winners – Air Mauritius, China Eastern, Jet Airways, Swiss International Air Lines and Xiamen Airlines – were first-time winners. The results clearly demonstrated the competitive nature of the airline industry.
As at 12 June 2008, there are 78 airlines operating over 4,400 weekly scheduled flights at Changi Airport, connecting Singapore to 187 cities in 59 countries. For the first five months of 2008, passenger movements were 15,502,391 and airfreight tonnage was 784,726, representing a year-on-year growth of 5.9% and 4.2% respectively over the same period last year.
TravelDailyNews Asia-Pacific editorial team has an experience of over 35 years in B2B travel journalism as well as in tourism & hospitality marketing and communications.
