Changi Airport unveils new playground featuring ropes, nets and a pole at T4

SINGAPORE - Both children and adults will soon be able to try out a new playground at Changi Airport Terminal 4 (T4).

It features climbing nets and a pole for people to slide down at 2m intervals, Changi Airport Group said on Friday (Aug 3) when it unveiled the attraction at the official opening of T4, which started operations on Oct 31.

Anchored to both the ground and ceiling, Chandelier, as the new structure is called, is made of about 10km of rope, supported by about 15 tonnes of steel.

Located in the transit area, it can admit up to 50 people at any one time and will be opened to travellers in a few weeks' time.

T4 is home to 11 airlines, including Cathay Pacific and the AirAsia group of carriers.

The terminal, which took about four years to build, is a vital part of Changi's plans to accommodate a growing number of travellers until the giant T5 is ready around 2030.

With T4, Changi's four passenger terminals can now accommodate up to 82 million passengers a year. In 2017, the airport handled 62.2 million passengers, with the record set to be broken this year.

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Already, 32.1 million passengers have passed through Changi's gates between January and June this year, 5.5 per cent higher than during the same period last year.

T4 is also a test bed for technology that will be used in T5.

It is only in T4 that passengers can experience start-to-end automated do-it-yourself processes.

The terminal is the first at Changi Airport to use facial recognition to ensure the same traveller moves from the first to last step - for check-in, bag tagging, immigration clearance and boarding.

While operations at T4 have been mainly smooth in the past nine months, there was initial confusion when it first opened when some travellers found that they were not able to access the automated boarding system.

This prompted the airport to put up signs and video content at the boarding area to inform travellers that they can use the automated gates only if they did automated immigration clearance. Those who did not should head to staffed counters instead to be processed manually for boarding.

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This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.