As millions of passengers return to the skies for long-delayed plans, they’ll be returning to an airport that’s likely a little different.

The lockdowns of 2020 hit aviation harder than almost any other industry. Airports, as a subsector, lost 98 percent of their passenger volume and, with it, $32 billion in revenues. That’s a staggering 45 percent—but all was not lost. During the downtime, as the arrival halls echoed with emptiness and the baggage carousels sat idle, many airports used the time to reimagine the passenger experience, pilot new technologies, upgrade systems, and even accelerate construction projects.

And now, finally, travel plans are back on. Here, alumni from the field share insights into how the industry has readied itself for your arrival at the airport—and what to expect in the next era of travel trends.

In January 2020, Wee Ping Lim (MBA 2002) hosted a group of HBS students who were passing through Singapore’s Changi Airport on their way back to campus. A senior VP of business development at Changi Airport Group (CAG) and Changi Airports International, Lim told them about the airport’s progression from 1981, when it opened with one terminal and one runway, to one of the largest hubs in Asia. By 2019 it was serving 68 million passengers a year from four terminals, with the world’s tallest indoor waterfall and a four-story slide, a shopping and entertainment complex, and a worldwide reputation for innovation. Lim’s presentation included a graph of passenger volume over the years that charted a steady, skyward incline, dotted by a few fleeting blips along the way: the Asian financial crisis of 1997, the SARS outbreak of 2003, the 2008 global financial crisis. The novel coronavirus emerging from China that had been all over the news? Probably another blip.

Instead, the last two years have acted as a crucible, he says. Without 98 percent of its passenger volume at the worst of times, CAG used the time to focus on the long view. It revised the timeline for the construction of a new terminal and adapted plans to make it more pandemic resilient. It also closed two of its four terminals so that expansion plans for one of them could speed along without having to tiptoe around planes or passengers. “The timing could not have been better as Terminal 2 is slated to reopen this year, on an accelerated schedule, in time for the rebound in traffic that we are beginning to see,” Lim says.

Changi also implemented a host of new health and safety measures to make the various touch points throughout the airport less touchy, beginning with check-in: Travelers can print their boarding pass and check bags at self-service kiosks, without touching a thing. First-of-its-kind infrared proximity sensors detect the motion of a finger as it hovers over the screen; the same technology has been installed in the elevators. Passengers also have the option of registering their iris and facial biometrics with the immigration authority, to pass through an automated clearance lane in customs. To avoid long lines, travelers can prebook time slots for security screening using the iChangi app. And for purchases, Changi has launched a digital wallet that enables contactless payments in the airport’s shops and restaurants, including duty-free transactions. Travelers who require assistance at any point in the airport can use digital screens with video-calling functionality to connect with a virtual ambassador service to have their questions answered.

The terminals—with more than one million square meters of flooring—are kept clean by a fleet of robots that see to a growing list of chores. With names like “Clean” and “Shiny,” they mop and scrub floors, disinfect handrails, vacuum carpets, and pose for selfies. Behind the scenes, the airport is adopting a predictive maintenance approach to cleaning. The Where2Clean app uses real-time data (such as flight-arrival times) to help cleaning supervisors deploy resources as and when needed. “This shift in approach—from scheduled maintenance toward dynamic, on-demand cleaning—will be progressively applied to other areas of airport maintenance, and in turn help Changi maintain the highest cleanliness standards for our passengers, in a sustainable way,” Lim says.

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