SINGAPORE FLING i i--s

Changing planes at Changi, or stuck in transit for an extra day? Simon Calder lets you in on a few city state secrets

- Simon Calder

The airline official shrugged. Hundreds of passengers were waiting at the gate at Singapore's Changi airport for Jetstar's overnight flight to Melbourne last Friday evening when the flight was cancelled. One of the pilots was sick; I hope they made a swift recovery.

The airline, which is the budget brand of Qantas, postponed the flight to the following night and made arrangements for hotels for the stranded passengers. But I was in a hurry, keen to fly immediately. Surely I could be transferred to a Qantas flight instead? “No, we can’t do that,” the official said.

There are worse places to be stranded, I concluded, as I tried to find affordable options for an earlier flight. Plus, the cancellation also allowed me comprehensively to tour the entire transit area of one of the world’s key hubs while “airside” – ie without clearing Singapore immigration. This is what I found.

Terminals 1, 2 and 3 form a single unit

They are arranged in a U-shape with Terminal 1 at the bottom, T2 to the left and T3 to the right. You can walk from the most distant gate in T2 to the furthest-flung one in T3, via T1, in about half an hour. But don’t walk – instead, take the…