Singapore Changi was named Overall Winner on a night that celebrated the outstanding achievements across the route development industry.
By DAVID CASEY
Singapore Changi Airport has been crowned the Overall Winner at the Routes Asia 2023 Awards, as well as triumphing in the Over 10 Million Passengers airport category.
The event celebrated excellence in airport and destination marketing. Other winners at the ceremony were Mactan-Cebu International Airport, Perth Airport, the Philippine Department of Tourism and AirAsia Group.
“We would like to express our deepest appreciation to our airline partners who have collaborated closely with every one of us at Changi Airport and together, we have recovered our passenger traffic steadily since our full reopening in April 2022,” Alicia Chen, general manager of market development at Singapore Changi, said.
“Changi Airport is committed to grow our connectivity through restoring flights and capacity, expanding to new markets and developing new passenger segments with our family of airlines. We will continue to seek innovative ways of marketing our air hub and look forward to more exciting years ahead with our invaluable partners.”
The airport increased traffic to 32.2 million in 2022—a huge rise from 3.1 million a year earlier—and was ranked as the 11th busiest cargo airport in the world last year. It also added 11 new passenger airline partners in 2021 and 2022, including Bamboo Airways, Gulf Air and Hong Kong Express, and welcomed back a further 19 carriers.
Marketing support for airlines has included the launch of the Changi eVoucher Campaign, which provides vouchers to passengers of its partners to spend when they travel through the airport, and an initiative with Chinese online travel agent Ctrip to promote Singapore Airlines’ student fares.
In the Under 5 Million Passengers category, Mactan-Cebu International in the Philippines was named the winner. Cebu’s monthly passengers reached 64% of pre-pandemic levels in December 2022 and the airport achieved full-year traffic of 5.6 million passengers. With the easing of restrictions in key source markets, route successes have included Starlux and China Airlines launching flights from Taipei, while AirAsia Philippines is seeking to develop Cebu as a hub.
Aines Librodo, head of airline marketing and tourism development, said the airport would continue working “side-by-side” with its airlines.
In the 5-10 Million Passengers category, Perth Airport in Australia triumphed. Since the reopening of Western Australia’s borders last March, Perth’s traffic has recovered strongly, rising to 10 million passengers in 2022 or 68% of 2019 levels.
During the year, the airport supported several airline-specific campaigns, including undertaking World Cup activity for Qatar Airways, a corporate VIP event for Emirates, and a Bali relaunch event for Batik Air. Among the new routes launched were Qantas’ seasonal services to Rome and Johannesburg.
Perth Airport SVP aviation business development Stephanie Juszkiewicz said, “Stakeholder engagement is always our priority and our joint marketing efforts have helped drive customer demand with pleasing results.”
The Destination Award was won by the Philippine Department of Tourism, which has worked hard to recovery inbound traffic to the tourism-dependent nation. After successfully pushing for the reopening of its borders, the Philippines closed 2022 with more than 2 million arrivals—beating its target of 1.7 million. New initiatives introduced include the launch of an electronic arrival card and a migrant worker scheme.
AirAsia Group won the Airline category. The Malaysia-based LCC, which also has units in Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand, has continued to recover its route network and expects to have fully reactivated its near-250 aircraft fleet by the third quarter of 2023. A new joint venture carrier will also be launched in Cambodia later this year.
The judging panel for the airport and destination categories was drawn from key figures from the airline network planning community, while the airline category was judged by a panel of Routes and ATW editors.
Photos: Ocean Driven Media
