Asia’s overstretched airports brace for 4b flyers

For months, air traffic controllers and engineers have been holed up in a windowless room at Singapore’s Changi Airport. This is a prototype of the control “tower” of the future. If all goes well, Changi will be the world’s largest and most complex airport to adopt this next-generation control tower set-up. The aviation authority is also turning to artificial intelligence to help the airport run smoothly. The ultimate goal is to accommodate more planes and passengers. This is Singapore’s way of confronting a problem plaguing Asia’s hubs: a severe and worsening capacity crunch. Passenger numbers in the region are growing so fast that airports have been unable to keep up. As the middle class expands in the Asia-Pacific, 3.9b flyers are expected to be soaring over Asia annually by 2037 — an increase of 2.35b. <br/>