Travellers with lounge access can now enjoy a more comfortable journey when passing through Changi Airport, in another step towards normality for air travel. Singapore Airlines said it would fully reopen its two lounges at Changi Airport Terminal 3 at 6pm on Tuesday, following a $50m upgrading project that started in 2019. British Airways had earlier reopened its lounge at Changi Airport Terminal 1 at the end of last month, after a two-year closure. SIA said on Monday that the upgraded SilverKris and KrisFlyer Gold lounges at T3 will improve customer experience in tandem with the recovery in air travel. The carrier's chairman Peter Seah said at the lounges' opening ceremony on Monday that the upgrades will help SIA to continue establishing its leadership in the airline industry. "We want our lounges to be a signal that not only do we want to maintain our premium brand position, but also to enhance it," said Seah. "We hope that the opening of these lounges will also buttress our position as the anchor airline for Changi Airport and help show that together.... we provide world-class services to all passengers who fly through Singapore." SIA CE Goh Choon Phong said that the carrier is confident of growing demand for premium travel in the region. "If you look at this part of the world, you actually see that economies (in the region) are expected to grow faster than most other economies around the word," he said. "So with that, we expect that business travel and premium travel will also increase."<br/>
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Plans for a joint venture between All Nippon Airways (ANA) and Singapore Airlines are still in the offing over two years after they were first announced. “We are progressing well not just with ANA, but all of our alliance partners,” says SIA CE Goh Choon Phong. “Throughout the pandemic we’ve maintained contact, and continue our discussion on how to take the collaboration further.” He adds that he recently had a discussion with ANA’s CE regarding the proposed joint venture. Goh made the remarks at Singapore’s Changi Airport Terminal 3, where the carrier unveiled new and expanded lounges for premium passengers. In January 2020, the two Star Alliance carriers announced a “metal-neutral” pact that will allow them to widen their partnership beyond Singapore and Japan, to “key markets” such as Australia, India, Indonesia and Malaysia. It will cover “a broad range of joint fare products, tie-ups between frequent flyer programmes, and aligned corporate programmes”. In mid-2021, the Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore said it was seeking public feedback about the proposed joint venture. Goh adds that the majority of SIA Group aircraft are back in operation following high levels of storage during the pandemic. According to a recent SIA results presentation, SIA and Scoot had 183 aircraft in their fleet as of 31 March. “Most of our aircraft are actually back in operations,” he says. “There are some still parked in Alice Springs – most of those aircraft are meant for disposal.”<br/>