Travelers, take note: Changi Airport to cancel boarding call announcements next year

Starting January next year, Singapore’s Changi Airport will implement a “Quiet Airport” initiative, under which boarding call announcements will be completely stopped except in special circumstances. Once this new plan takes effect, the average volume of announcements across all four terminals is expected to be halved, creating a quieter airport environment. Currently, announcements are made at intervals of about every five minutes in each of the four terminals.

According to reports, Changi Airport will only use its public address system to notify passengers of important incidents such as emergencies, lost children, and flight delays in the future. Changi Airport noted that although passenger traffic surpassed 60 million this year and is expected to keep growing, continuing to call out the names of passengers who haven’t boarded and making final boarding calls—as is currently done—will make the terminals increasingly noisy, while also making it difficult to hear important information such as flight delays and gate changes.

It is known that many major international airports have already stopped making boarding call announcements. Hong Kong International Airport only calls individual passengers under special circumstances; Brussels Airport in Belgium uses the PA system to inform all passengers only in emergencies; and Munich Airport in Germany has replaced its announcement system with self-service kiosks displaying flight information.