Changi Airport celebrates its 500th Best Airport award with free cuppas

OREANDA-NEWS. Changi Airport recently received its 500^th Best Airport award and in celebration of this milestone, it is serving complimentary cups of artisan coffee to passengers and airport staff in the mornings of 24 and 25 November 2015.

A heartfelt gesture of appreciation

To thank both passengers and airport staff for their unwavering support over the years, 16 leaders from Changi Airport Group (CAG) and various airport agencies[1] came together early this morning to serve up fresh coffee brews in Changi Airport’s three terminals.

“We are both honoured and humbled to have received our 500^th Best Airport award. This is a significant event and a special gift to the nation too as we draw near to the close of our celebrations for SG50,” said Mr Lee Seow Hiang, CEO, CAG. “This coffee giveaway is our small way, from CAG and all our partner agencies at the airport, of showing our appreciation to our passengers and members of the airport community who have supported us deeply over the last three decades. The 500^th award is an encouragement that will spur us to further innovate and demand from ourselves the highest level of service and the best possible travel experience for all our passengers.”

Dedicated coffee kiosks manned by skilled baristas have been set up at nine locations across the airport terminals in both the public and transit areas. Passengers and staff can look forward to either a stencilled latte or a plain brew from 6am to 11am on both days.

Aside from the coffee, all airport staff will also receive a complimentary Adidas backpack as a token of appreciation for their hard work and dedication in shaping Changi Airport into what it is today.

An experience brewed to perfection

Since Changi Airport opened in 1981, it has been receiving accolades for the Changi Experience, recognised for its facilities and amenities, service quality, as well as approach to travel retail. No stranger to the international awards stage, Changi Airport has received
22 accolades so far this year. Notable awards include World’s Best Airport by Skytrax which Changi has won a total of six times including a hat-trick from 2013 to 2015, and Business Traveller’s Best Airport in the World for 28 consecutive years since 1988. The 500^th award was recently presented to Changi Airport by Business Traveller (China) which named Changi Best Airport in the World for the 10^th time.

Looking ahead

Today, Changi Airport is the world’s seventh busiest airport for international traffic with
54.1 million passengers passing through its gates in 2014. With one flight landing or taking off every 90 seconds, Changi Airport plays host to more than 100 airlines with over
6,600 weekly scheduled flights. The number of people working in the airport has also grown in tandem with its passenger traffic. More than 40,000 staff from across 200 airport agencies work hard each day to keep the airport in tip-top condition.

Besides providing travellers with an unparalleled Changi Experience that is personalised, stress-free and positively surprising, Changi also prides itself on its comprehensive retail, dining and lifestyle offerings. It has introduced concepts never before seen in an airport, such as a butterfly garden, an indoor slide, the largest kinetic art sculpture in the world (Kinetic Rain) and most recently, the famed Raffles Long Bar. Even with more than
350 retail stores and 160 F&B outlets in the airport, the shopping experience at Changi has been transformed with three new duplex store openings by DFS, The Shilla Duty Free and Zara, offering shoppers an even wider range of cosmetics and perfumes, wines and spirits as well as apparel. The upcoming iconic lifestyle destination Jewel Changi Airport, when completed in 2018, will take this experience to a whole new level.

Changi Airport will continue to innovate and delight as it moves into exciting times ahead. Terminal 4, set to open its doors come 2017, will offer many new breakthroughs in both terminal design and the passenger travel experience, enhanced by the extensive use of technology. Terminal 5, to be ready in the mid-2020s, will grow the airport’s capacity to about 135 million passengers per year. This, together with a third runway, will better position Changi to capture growth opportunities in air travel in the coming decades while it strives to remain a favourite airport among passengers the world over.

[1] Certis CISCO Aviation Security, Clean Solutions, DFS Venture Singapore, Lagardere Services Singapore, P-Serv, Primech Services & Engineering, Ramky Cleantech Services, SATS, Shilla Travel Retail, Smarte Carte and Woodlands Transport Service