Visitors to next February’s Singapore Airshow–35,000 professionals is the organizers’ target–will find a spanking new show site and a relaxed atmosphere to help them focus more keenly than ever on the booming business of aerospace.

Up to 100 chalets, some of them beachfront in the new, purpose-built Changi North site, will have roof gardens. Gentlemen will be encouraged to leave their neckties at home. Singapore Airshow and Events managing director Jimmy Lau said here yesterday that jackets and open-neck shirts, even polo shirts, would be acceptable attire, and some “icons of the industry” will be promoting the “dress short” campaign

The new 430,000-square-foot exhibition hall is on schedule for completion on September 1, and demand for space has been so strong that he is looking to add a further 27,000 square feet. Maybe not next year, but certainly by 2010 when the seabed around the reclaimed site has been properly surveyed, there will be floating exhibits. And in refreshing contrast to Le Bourget, Lau is promising much better transportation links, easier access to the show site and huge car parks.

There will be four major conferences, including the first-ever Singapore Aviation Leadership Summit. Staged in association with IATA, the event will bring together ministers of transport, regulators from civil aviation authorities and airline heads from across the Southeast Asia region and beyond for a closed-doors session. “It will allow the airline chiefs to air operational problems to the politicians who make the policies and the regulators who enforce them,” Lau said.

In parallel with the summit, there will be renewals of the Global Air Power Conference for representatives of international air forces, last held in 2000; an International Defence Procurement Conference for customers, agencies and suppliers; a Global Space Technology Convention; and the C4I Asia conference focusing on command and control in network-centric warfare.