PASSENGERS arriving from San Francisco via Seoul on a Singapore Airlines (SIA) flight will be the first to land at the new Terminal 3 (T3) which opens next Wednesday.

They will touch down at the $1.75 billion terminal at 11.50am on Jan 9.

The first flight departing from Singapore using T3 is also an SIA flight headed for London at 12.50pm. Check-in counters for departing passengers will be open from 9am.

SIA will be the only airline to operate out of the seven-storey T3 when it opens next week.

Four other airlines - China Eastern Airlines, Jet Airways, Qatar Airways and United Airlines - will join SIA but they begin operations only in March.

'Customers will now enjoy the benefits of having access to two world-class terminals - state-of-the-art facilities, modern design, thoughful service and of course, more choice,' said SIA senior vice president (product and services), Yap Kim Wah.

SIA continues to operate from both Terminals 2 and 3.

Since flights may arrive at either terminal, those meeting arriving passengers can check which terminal to go to at www.singaporeair.com or www.changiairport.com, two hours before the flight lands.

They can also check the teletext, call the enquiry hotline at 1800-542-4422, or look at flight information screens throughout Changi Airport.

For passengers departing on SIA flights, they can check-in at terminals based on their destinations.

Terminal 2 will handle passengers heading to Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Middle East as well as Russia and Turkey.

All other passengers - those heading to the United States, Canada, other European cities, North Asia, Australia and New Zealand - can check-in at Terminal 3.

Check-in terminals will be printed on all SIA e-tickets and boarding passes including those printed at home, and such information is also posted on the SIA website.

Transit passengers can check with transfer desks and flight information screens on where to head for their connecting flight and hop on a Skytrain if their flight is in another terminal.

Said the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS): 'We would like to advise SIA passengers as well as their families to check flight details before heading for Changi Airport and to confirm it again when they are at the airport.'

It added that brochures giving details of SIA flights are widely available.

With the opening of T3, Changi Airport will be able to handle another 22 million passengers a year.

This brings Changi's total annual handling capacity to about 70 million passengers with passengers going through Terminal 1, 2, 3 and the Budget Terminal.