SINGAPORE Changi Airport is set to undergo a massive facelift over the next decade, adding a mixed-use development codenamed Project Jewel and two more terminals in order to stay ahead of regional competitors.

The project was first unveiled by Singapore prime minister Lee Hsien Loong during the city-state’s national day rally over the weekend, with details revealed by Changi Airport Group in a press release today.

Project Jewel, to be constructed on the 3.5-hectare car park site fronting Terminal 1 (T1), was designed by a consortium of design consultants led by the renowned Moshe Safdie and will boast an external glass and steel façade, and a large-scale indoor garden with a waterfall.

Visitors would find in Project Jewel aviation and travel-related facilities, retail outlets and leisure attractions meant to draw not just travellers but also Singaporeans, said Lee in a report in The Straits Times.

To make up for the loss in parking space, Project Jewel will also come with a multi-storey basement car park. The complex will also serve as a node linking the terminals and in due course, provide a central communal facility for the airport community.

T1 will be expanded to allow more space for the arrival hall, baggage claim areas and taxi bays, boosting the facility’s passenger handling capacity to 24 million passenger movements a year.

Meanwhile, Terminal 4 (T4) will be constructed on the site of the old Budget Terminal, which shut on September 25 last year (TTG Asia e-Daily, August 31, 2013). T4 has a planned capacity of 16 million passengers a year, and construction is set to begin end-2013 and complete in 2017, according to The Business Times.

On the other hand, construction on the airport’s fourth runway located in Terminal 5 and the terminal itself, should be wrapped up in a decade, doubling airport capacity.

The Business Times places Changi Airport’s capacity at 73 million currently.

ZEST Air has responded publicly to the suspension order issued on Friday by the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) grounding the budget carrier’s operations, saying it was “surprised”.

In a press statement released on the same day as the grounding, Zest Air said it was “surprised that (the suspension order) was issued without giving us an opportunity to properly respond to their issues raised”.

The airline said its management had been “in full cooperation with CAAP in ensuring that the maintenance programmes and policies of Zest Air are in place” and asserted that “all 11 (Zest) aircraft are safe and airworthy”.

CAAP had last Friday banned the LCC from flying over incidents that had compromised several flights as well as other violations of air safety rules, according to news agency AFP.

In a letter to operator Zest Airways, CAAP pointed out that five Zest Air flights had been grounded in the period spanning July 22 and August 13 due to problems such as fuel overflow, and another plane had been found refuelling on Wednesday with passengers on board.

The airline’s pilots were also found to have exceeded the flying time limit of 100 hours per month, and no “accountable manager” had been appointed after the resignation of its previous executive in July, reported AFP.

Responding to CAAP’s charges, Zest Air said: “The reason why management in the past weeks have decided to voluntarily stop our aircraft from flying is to proactively ensure that any issues discovered, are rectified or properly addressed before we use the aircraft for commercial operations.”

It added that its reports “reflected this and is confirmed by CAAP inspectors that no procedural lapses were committed and that the aircraft concerned is not subject to any technical problems”.

“Our accountable manager is ambassador Alfredo M Yao, who is the president and CEO of Zest Air.

“Furthermore, none of our pilots or crew are exceeding their duty time limitations,” insisted the airline.

SOUTH-EAST Asia’s budget carrier sector will get more crowded this year-end, when Sriwijaya Air subsidiary NAM Air is projected to begin operations from its base in Indonesia, report local media.

According to The Jakarta Post, the budget airline is in the midst of acquiring an air operator certificate. Its flight permits state that it has been given rights to fly as many as 300 routes both domestic as well as international, including destinations such as Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines and Singapore.

Sriwijaya Air owner and CEO, Chandra Lie, confirmed in the report that the LCC was expected to take off by end-2013. “We are optimistic that this carrier will be able to start providing its service by the end of 2013, because we are accelerating the whole process. We have mapped out which areas we are going to enter first and we are weighing options on the type of aircraft we plan to use,” he said.

The carrier will begin its first phase of operations with Boeing 737-500s belonging to its parent company, with the aircraft based in Bali and Nusa Tenggara.

Meanwhile, it would continue looking to secure a deal with plane makers to order more aircraft, after a deal between Sriwijaya, NAM Air and Embraer fell through last year, said the same Jakarta Post article.

LUXURY tour operator Insight Vacations has cancelled all tours to Egypt in the wake of a resurgence of violence and political instability in the country.

Said Sheryl Lim, regional director, Asia, Insight Vacations: “Insight Vacations’ tours to Egypt from now until September 15, 2013 will be cancelled. As it is the off-season at present however, there are very few bookings out of Asia, so there is very little effect on our sales.”

She said that the peak travel period for Egypt was the five-week stretch from end-November to end-December.

“Before the political upheaval two years ago, we sent 200 to 300 travellers a year from South-east Asia to Egypt during this period. After the outbreaks of violence however, demand has held steady at fewer than 50 travellers a year during this peak period,” Lim observed.

Just a month ago, Malaysian outbound travel consultants had also reported a plunge in demand for tours to Egypt due to a fresh outbreak of riots (TTG Asia e-Daily, July 1, 2013).

On Insight’s response to situations where tours had to be cancelled, Lim explained: “Should there be a cancellation before the tour group departs, we will inform all our partner travel consultants, who will proceed to liaise with the travellers.

“If there is an outbreak (of violence) in the middle of the itinerary, the top priority is the safety of our guests. Our standard operating procedure is to escort the group back to their hotel immediately, after which we will make the necessary arrangements to have our travellers flown back home on the earliest flight out.”

STARWOOD Hotels & Resorts has opened the first Sheraton and international brand property in China’s Hebei Province in the Sheraton Qinhuangdao Beidaihe Hotel.

The hotel is a 15-minute drive from the Qinhuangdao Economic & Technology Development Zone, 10 minutes from the Qinhuangdao Beidaihe Train Station and 45 minutes from the Qinhuangdao Shanhaiguan Airport.

Owned by Qinhuangdao Runqin Real Estate, the property features 243 guestrooms and suites and offers amenities such as high-speed Internet access, the Sheraton Club, Sheraton Fitness Programme by Core Performance and an indoor heated pool.

F&B outlets include Feast, Sheraton’s signature all-day dining restaurant; YUE Chinese restaurant; Outdoor Fountain Bar; and B1 Wine Bar.

Event planners will be glad to know the hotel comes with 1,800m² of event space across a grand ballroom, five meeting rooms and a pre-function room.

The opening of the Sheraton Qinhuangdao Beidaihe Hotel is part of the brand’s aggressive expansion plans, which is targeting 500 hotels by 2015.

Sheraton Qinhuangdao Beidaihe Hotel has rolled out an introductory package starting from RMB2,100 (US$343) for a one-night stay in a deluxe room, including breakfast buffet for two persons and free flow from the mini bar, valid until August 31.

Starwood Preferred Guest members will receive double Starpoints as part of the package.

THE Philippine Department of Tourism (DoT) is hoping to see a return in Taiwanese tourists following the Taiwanese government’s lifting of a travel ban against the South-east Asian nation over a week ago, and plans to do this by working with the Taiwanese travel trade.

Tess Mauricio, head for Asia-Pacific and Oceania, Tourism Promotions Board (TPB), DoT, said: “We hope to entice more buyers to come from Taiwan and register at the Philippine Travel Exchange 2013 (PHITEX).”

The travel mart is scheduled to run between September 4 and 6, ahead of the Philippine Tour Operators Association’s yearly Philippine Travel Mart. Registered buyers can participate in fam trips across seven cluster programmes, three of which will introduce new components such as Siquijor, Matnog in Sorsogon, and Sarangani.

TPB is also planning to re-mount a sales mission that was cancelled last June, covering the trade in Kaohsiung, Taichung, and Taipei. The board also said local airlines were in talks to resume charter flights from Taiwan to popular destinations in the Philippines, but was unable to share more.

Mauricio said that tour operators in Taiwan were expected to reorganise tours that would get flight charters back in business following the lifting of the ban.

Cebu Pacific’s vice president for marketing and distribution, Candice Iyog, shared that the airline had received inquiries from Taiwanese tour operators regarding charter flights but charter schedules had not yet been finalised.

Taiwan severed travel ties with the Philippines in May this year after Philippine coastguards opened fire on and killed a Taiwanese fisherman in disputed waters off Batanes, sparking a diplomatic spat and a travel advisory against the Philippines (TTG Asia e-Daily, May 21, 2013).

Meanwhile, the removal of Europe’s ban against PAL (TTG Asia e-Daily, July 11, 2013) has also spelled more hopes for the longhaul market and could bring PHITEX buyers from markets such as the UK, Italy and Russia. The airline is expected to resume flights to European destinations such as London from October.