Singapore Changi Airport handled 17.4 million passenger movements in the three months to September, up just 0.4% from a year earlier, while airfreight throughput climbed 8.0% to 574,000 tonnes on demand for AI-related semiconductors and electronics, Changi Airport Group said in its quarterly operating update.

The split matters for investors watching one of Southeast Asia's busiest hubs. Passenger growth has slowed to a crawl after the jet fuel shock earlier this year forced airlines to trim short-haul regional flying, yet the cargo side keeps tracking the region's chip export boom. That combination favors freight handlers and long-haul carriers over budget airlines that depend on dense, short regional routes.

Aircraft movements, counting landings and take-offs, rose faster than passengers, up 2.5% to 93,900 in the quarter. A year earlier, Changi had handled 17.3 million passengers in the third quarter, a 3.1% increase on 2024, with aircraft movements roughly flat at 91,600, according to the operator's release at the time.

Vietnam and China lead Changi's passenger markets

The headline number hides wide gaps between markets. Among Changi's 10 largest markets, Vietnam grew the fastest, up 20.5% year on year, and China, the airport's biggest market, rose 10.4%, the airport operator said. The top five markets were China, Indonesia, Australia, Malaysia and India.

Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Denpasar on Bali, Bangkok and Shanghai were the five busiest routes. Among the 10 busiest, Tokyo grew 5.2% and Melbourne 5.1%, the fastest of the group. Changi Airport Group said Europe, Northeast Asia and the Southwest Pacific were the main sources of growth.

Since total traffic barely rose, the strong gains on those routes imply weaker numbers elsewhere in the network. The operator did not give a figure for Southeast Asia in its third-quarter release. In the second quarter, it said traffic on Southeast Asian routes fell 5.0% as airlines cut services in the face of higher costs, while Europe rose 8.7%, according to Asian Aviation. Total passenger movements in that quarter slipped 1.5% to 17.2 million, before the third quarter's return to modest growth.

The year has been uneven. In the first quarter, Changi handled 17.6 million passengers, up 2.3%, even as traffic between Singapore and the Middle East fell 80% in March because of the conflict there, the operator said. Adding the three quarters together gives about 52.2 million passenger movements for the first nine months of 2026, by Capital Times' calculation.

Lim Ching Kiat, the group's executive vice president for air hub and cargo development, said demand for air travel stayed resilient in the third quarter. He said airlines were still dealing with "elevated fuel costs and other operational pressures," and that Changi would keep working with partners to build up promising routes.

Chip shipments keep Changi's cargo growing

Freight has been the steadier story all year. Third-quarter throughput of 574,000 tonnes followed 567,000 tonnes in the second quarter, up 9.8%, and 517,000 tonnes in the first, up 7.6%, according to the operator's figures as reported by Asian Aviation and Bernama.

The group said the latest gain came from both export and import flows, led by semiconductor and electronics shipments tied to artificial intelligence. China, the United States, Australia, Hong Kong and India were the largest cargo markets. The pattern matches trade data elsewhere in the region, where Malaysia's Penang has been shipping record volumes of chips.

Cargo capacity is also being added. SF Airlines started a Shanghai-Singapore service in September alongside its existing Shenzhen flights, and DHL Global Forwarding announced plans for a cold-chain hub at the Changi Airfreight Centre to handle temperature-sensitive shipments, the operator said.

New airlines join, but network rebuild is slow

Four passenger airlines started flying to Changi during the quarter. Oman Air began four weekly flights to Muscat, Sun PhuQuoc Airways started daily service to Phu Quoc in Vietnam and AirBorneo launched daily flights to Kuching in Malaysia. 9 Air began a daily service to Yinchuan via Guangzhou, giving Changi a new city link, and Xiamen Airlines added daily flights to Changsha and Nanjing.

Three of the new services point to Vietnam and China, the markets already growing fastest, a sign of where carriers see demand as Vietnam's trade with the world keeps expanding. The rebuilding of regional services cut earlier in the year has been slower. In July, Lim said jet fuel prices had eased from their March peaks and that Changi was in talks with airlines to restore some suspended flights, according to Asian Aviation.

Changi links Singapore to about 170 cities, with close to 100 airlines operating some 7,000 weekly flights, the group said. Its next quarterly update, covering October to December, will show whether year-end holiday travel lifts full-year traffic above the 12-month record of 70.4 million passengers that Changi reported for the year to March.