Since the evening of Jan 10 (Friday), 18 flights that were supposed to land at Singapore’s Changi and Seletar airports had been diverted to neighbouring airfields due to heavy rain.
Changi Airport Group (CAG), which operates both airports, told The Straits Times that 12 flights due to land at Changi Airport were diverted to regional airports, such as those in Johor Bahru and Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia and Batam in Indonesia.
These flights, operated by various airlines, had originated from cities including Bangkok and Phuket in Thailand, Jakarta in Indonesia and Shanghai in China, added CAG.
The six non-commercial flights – private jets or aircraft used for training purposes – bound for Seletar Airport were diverted to Changi Airport, the airport operator said.
No further weather-related flight diversions took place after Monday (Jan 13) morning, CAG added.
Checks by ST showed that Thai Airways flight TG401 travelling from Bangkok to Singapore on the night of Jan 12 was among those that were diverted.
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The plane circled Singapore’s airfields for about 20 minutes before being diverted to Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA).
It then spent close to two hours on the ground at KLIA, according to flight data from flight-tracking website Flightradar24, before departing for Changi Airport again and arriving in Singapore at 1.15 am.
A passenger on that Thai Airways flight, who requested to remain anonymous, said the pilot announced that Singapore’s authorities did not allow any planes to approach Changi Airport when TG401 was preparing to land at around 10 pm, leading to the diversion.
Once the plane had arrived at KLIA, no one was allowed to leave the aircraft. The passenger added that upon finally arriving in Singapore past 1 am, there were massive crowds of arriving passengers, which made the wait for a taxi much longer than usual.
It took him more than two hours to get home.
A Singapore-based pilot with more than 15 years of flying experience – who spoke to ST on condition of anonymity because he is not authorised to speak to the media – said most pilots decide on where to divert flights to based on the amount of remaining fuel on the aircraft, distance from the destination and number of available runways at the alternative airport, among other factors.
In the event of bad weather that could also affect other airfields nearby, the pilot said procedures are in place to divert flights to alternative airports that are farther away, such as in Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta.
More fuel will be carried on board when such situations are expected.
He added that over the weekend, air traffic could have slowed significantly due to wet weather, since planes might need a longer time to take off or land.
As a result, the take-off or landing of some aircraft might have been delayed, and some were likely diverted when they ran low on fuel and could not wait.
The prolonged rainy weather caused by the ongoing monsoon surge led to Changi clocking the highest total amount of rainfall, at 255.2 mm, over Jan 10 and 11, surpassing Singapore’s monthly average rainfall of 222.4 mm in January, according to national water agency PUB.
A monsoon surge is a sudden increase in wind speeds that causes cold air to rush southwards over the South China Sea.
The rainy weather is expected to persist till Jan 13, PUB said.
ST earlier reported that more than 50 Singapore Airlines flights on Jan 10 and 11 were delayed or retimed because of the bad weather.
When asked for an updated number of affected flights on Jan 13, a spokesperson for the national carrier said several SIA flights continue to be delayed or retimed, owing to the ongoing inclement weather in Singapore and the region.
The airline will continue monitoring the situation closely and make appropriate adjustments to its flights where necessary, said SIA’s spokesperson.
Data from Flightradar24 showed that one SIA flight, SQ141, scheduled to arrive from Penang at 10.40 pm on Jan 12 was delayed and prevented from taking off on time.
It landed in Singapore close to one-and-a-half hours later at 12.07 am on Jan 13.
At the same time, Scoot flight TR403 from Melaka to Singapore on Jan 12 was delayed on the ground in Melaka by almost two hours, arriving at Changi Airport at almost 1 am on Jan 13, instead of 11.10 pm as planned.
Flash flood warnings in Singapore were also issued for the period between Jan 10 and 13, as PUB warned that the heavy downpours may overwhelm the city’s canals and drains temporarily, triggering sudden and localised floods.
Temperatures fell to 21.6 degrees Celsius in Newton on the morning of Jan 11, nearly matching the lowest temperature of 21.4 deg C in 2024. THE STRAITS TIMES