Seletar Airport

Background

Seletar Airport, located in the northeastern part of Singapore's main island, is the oldest aerodrome in operation in the country. Completed in 1929, it was purpose-built for the British Royal Air Force (RAF) and was RAF's first airbase in the Far East. When it was opened to commercial aircraft in 1930, it also became Singapore's first international civil airport. It is no longer a military airbase but it still serves as a commercial airport, operated by the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS).

History
In 1923, the Straits Settlements government gave the British government a site for the new RAF base at Seletar. The 600-acre site, acquired from Singapore United Rubber Plantations Ltd, included 100 acres of mangrove swamp and large tracts of uneven land planted with coconut and rubber trees. The airbase began taking shape in 1927 and was completed in 1929. It officially opened as an RAF base on 1 January 1930, though the air force had already begun using it in 1928. In February 1930, the aerodrome received its first commercial flight, marking the start of its role as a civil airport. It served as both a military airbase and a civil airport until 1937, when the new Kallang Airport began handling all civilian flights into and out of Singapore.

Completed during a period that saw the birth of long-distance flying, the airport became an important part of aviation history when pioneer aviators (including Charles Kingsford-Smith, James Mollison, Amy Johnson and Jean Batten) landed here for their stopover in Singapore in the 1930s. Those who had come before them had to land on the Farrer Park racecourse or the Balestier Plain instead.

The Japanese military took control of the airbase during the Japanese Occupation and replaced the grass landing strip with a concrete runway. After the Japanese surrender in 1945, the airbase was returned to the British and it served as RAF's main logistics, maintenance and training base in the Far East. As part of the British military's withdrawal from Singapore, RAF began its phased handover of the airbase to the Singapore government in 1968. Since 1970, Seletar Airport has been reopened to commercial flights but it has been used mainly for flight training by civilian clubs and, for a while, the Singapore military.

Description
Seletar Airport has a control tower, a single runway of 1,592m and 33 aircraft stands. The passenger terminal building that houses the departure and arrival halls is a simple one-storey structure. There are two check-in counters and a small passenger service lounge for people waiting to board their flights. As there are no connecting bridges, passengers have to walk on the tarmac to get from the terminal building to their planes. Likewise for disembarking passengers.

It operates on a much smaller scale than Changi Airport, in terms of both the size of aircraft and the amount of passenger and cargo traffic. The only airline operating scheduled commercial flights from here is Berjaya Air, which offers round trips from Seletar Airport to the Malaysian islands of Tioman and Redang. Private jets and chartered planes account for most of the other travellers that pass through the airport's gates.

However, the main users of the airport are not the various flight operators but the aviation training schools located in the immediate vicinity of the airport proper. About 80% of all flights at the airport are by these schools, including the Republic of Singapore Flying Club, Seletar Flying Club, Singapore Flying College and Singapore Youth Flying Club.

The airport is currently in the process of being upgraded. To allow it to handle bigger aircraft such as the Boeing 737 and the Airbus A320, its runway will be extended by 244m and its avionics system upgraded. In addition, improvement works will be carried out on the existing runway, terminal building, aircraft taxiways and aprons, power network and air traffic control communications system. A new control tower will also be built.

Timeline
1921: The British Cabinet approved the setting up of an airfield and seaplane base in Singapore.
1923: The site at Seletar was approved as the location of the new RAF base.
10 Apr 1927: C. E. Woods, Principal Works and Buildings Officer, RAF Far East, arrived. Woods was responsible for overseeing the construction of the base and has often been described as "the man who built Seletar airbase".
28 Feb 1928: Arrival of four Supermarine Southampton seaplanes, the first planes to land at the new airbase. The four "flying boats" were on a landmark journey known as the Far East Flight, which began from England on 17 October 1927.
1929: The airbase was completed.
1 Jan 1930: RAF Seletar was officially opened.
11 Feb 1930: Arrival of the first commercial flight into Singapore, a Dutch East Indies Airways plane carrying eight passengers from Batavia (now known as Jakarta) and the first direct air mail from the Dutch Indies to Singapore.
12 Jun 1937: Kallang Airport was opened, taking over all civilian air traffic.
17 Jun 1968: The two-week-old Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) Flying Training School moved in.
28 Mar 1969: The airbase ceased to be an RAF flying base, but continued to be a centre for RAF's maintenance work.
April 1970: The Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) took over the administration of the airport.
31 Mar 1971: The airbase was officially handed over to the Singapore government.
1 Jul 1977: Seletar Airport began operating on a 24-hour basis. Previously, it operated from 6 am to 10 pm on weekdays and Saturdays, and from 6 am to 6 pm on Sundays and public holidays.
29 Oct 1977: An Air Vietnam plane hijacked by four Vietnamese nationals while on an internal flight from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, landed at the airport. The hijackers surrendered to local authorities the same day.
1 Sep 1984: DCA became CAAS, a statutory board. The airport remained under its management.
10 May 2006: The Singapore government announced that it would be upgrading the airport to support the new Seletar Aerospace Park that it was planning to build nearby.
9 Sep 2008: CAAS called a tender for the construction of a 244m runway extension and associated works.
11 Dec 2008: CAAS awarded the tender to Eng Seng Construction for S$42.2 million.



Author
Valerie Chew



References
"About," Seletar Airport," accessed 18 December 2008. 

"All Small Aircraft for Seletar Airport,” Straits Times, 18 July 1970, 3. (From NewspaperSG)

David Taylor, Seletar – Crowning Glory: A History of the RAF in Singapore (West Sussex: Woodfield Publishing, 2002). (Call no. RSING 358.40095957 TAY)

“Flying Boats at Seletar,” Straits Times, 29 February 1928, 9. (From NewspaperSG)

Karamjit Kaur, “Seletar Makeover To Turn It Into Key Aerospace Hub,” Straits Times, 11 May 2006, 1. (From NewspaperSG)

Karamjit Kaur, “Seletar’s Extreme Makeover Begins,” Straits Times, 19 April 2007, 1. (From NewspaperSG)

Karamjit Kaur, “Lights Out? Not for Quaint Lamp Posts in Seletar,” Straits Times, 31 July 2008, 39. (From NewspaperSG)

K. S. Sidhun et al., “Hijack Plane in Airport Drama,” Straits Times, 30 October 1977, 1. (From NewspaperSG)

Neville Shorrick, Lion in the Sky (Singapore: Federal Publications, 1968). (Via PublicationSG)

Paul Jansen, “Seletar Now Open to Aircraft on 24-Hour Basis,” Straits Times, 9 July 1977, 10. (From NewspaperSG)

“SAF Take Over Seletar Airfield,” Straits Times, 17 April 1969, 5. (From NewspaperSG)

“Seletar Airport,” Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore, accessed 18 December 2008.  

“Seletar Under Civil Aviation Dept,” Straits Times, 25 April 1970, 6. (From NewspaperSG)

Tamara Mohanan Kuppusamy, “Seletar Airport Extending Runway to 1,800m,” Business Times, 25 April 2007, 20. (From NewspaperSG)

V.S. K. Anandarajah, “1968 – Seletar Airbase – Witness to History,” MINDEF 10, no. 6 (7 June 2006)  

Wendy Yang, “Our Aviation Roots...,” Straits Times, 28 June 1981, 12. (From NewspaperSG)

William Campbell, “Singapore Begins Its Airforce Takeover,” Straits Times, 29 March 1969, 12. (From NewspaperSG)



The information in this article is valid as at 2008 and correct as far as we are able to ascertain from our sources. It is not intended to be an exhaustive or complete history of the subject. Please contact the Library for further reading materials on the topic.