SINGAPORE – More parts of Changi Airport could be opened up to speed up immigration clearance as passenger arrivals increase due to the expansion of a quarantine-free travel scheme, said Minister for Home Affairs and Law K. Shanmugam.
The Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) has reopened the automated check-in lanes at the airport from Friday (Oct 29) as well, for faster immigration clearance for Singaporeans and permanent residents.
But the overall time needed before a passenger can leave the airport will still be longer as compared to before the Covid-19 pandemic, Mr Shanmugam told reporters in a virtual interview after his visit to the airport on Friday morning.
“With increase in traveller volume, requirement for testing, clearances may take longer, and particularly if several flights arrive in quick succession,” he said.
The moves to streamline the immigration process comes as Changi welcomes more travellers, following the start of eight new Vaccinated Travel Lanes (VTLs) this month with countries such as the United States and Britain.
Some passengers have complained about long waiting times to go through immigration, while others said the process was swift.
Mr Shanmugam, who observed the process to clear passengers from four VTL flights, said passengers who submitted their declarations online took about 20 to 30 seconds to clear immigration using the automated lanes.
It will take about eight to 10 minutes for those who cannot use the automated lanes and have to go through immigration counters, such as very young children or tourists, he noted.
But the process could take a lot longer should a cluster of flights arrive together, in a situation known as bunching up.
There was an instance last week when travellers took about 90 minutes to clear immigration after five flights arrived at around the same time.
Mr Shanmugam said many passengers had not pre-filled their immigration forms.
“They queued up, they added to that time, they had to be pulled out, questions had to be asked of them, they had to fill up the forms, they had to be helped, they had to re-join the queues,” he said. “So, all these added up.”
He noted that pre-pandemic, ICA had the flexibility of moving passengers to different immigration lanes or parts of the airport when flights bunched up. Clearing immigration took about 40 to 45 minutes in such instances.
There are more constraints now, he added.
“Currently, only Terminal 1 and Terminal 3 are opened. Terminal 2 and Terminal 4 have been closed since May last year, in part due to the low passenger numbers caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
There are also measures in place at the airport to segregate arrivals from countries deemed to have higher-risk of infections.
We are looking to see whether we can open up some other parts and have the same sort of processes,” Mr Shanmugam said.
He added that travellers are now more aware of the need to fill up the necessary forms prior to arrival.
The additional requirements in the immigration process is also linked to a country’s risk tolerance, he said.
Citing Singapore’s requirement for VTL passengers to do a Covid-19 test upon arrival at the airport, he said this can take 20 to 30 minutes.
“There are other countries, other airports which don’t do it. Heathrow, for example, does not do on-arrival testing, so of course the experience for the traveller is better, but you go home, you make an appointment.
“But, there is a difference in risk tolerance.”
Mr Shanmugam said ICA officers have been taking the brunt of complaints from some travellers, and commended them for their hard work in various frontline roles.
“I spoke with some officers, told them to keep in good cheer, not to let some complaints affect them, do their work, and we will continue to look at processes to see how we can improve,” he said.
