Kamal Shah
The 10th edition of the Singapore Airshow, held at the Changi Exhibition Centre from 3–6 February 2026, marked a defining moment for the Asia‑Pacific aerospace and defence community. With a record 65,000 trade attendees from more than 130 countries and regions, over 1,100 participating companies, and approximately 1,300 delegate meetings, this landmark edition celebrated two decades of the show’s evolution into Asia’s preeminent platform for industry leaders, government officials and military delegations. The scale and substance of the event reflected not only the region’s growing clout in global aviation and defence, but also Singapore Airshow’s unique capacity to convert dialogue into decisive action.
A Decade of Growth, a Future of Influence
Reaching this milestone at its 10th iteration, Singapore Airshow demonstrated continuity and momentum. Nearly 95 percent of participating companies signalled their intent to return in 2028, a striking vote of confidence that underscores the event’s importance as a business generator and strategic convening space. The strong turnout reinforced how the Asia‑Pacific region has become central to the industry’s roadmap—fuelling demand, fostering innovation, and attracting investment that will shape manufacturing, operations, maintenance and defence capabilities across the globe.
Transactions & Tangible Outcomes
What set Singapore Airshow 2026 apart was its demonstrable record of delivering concrete business outcomes. Over four intensive trade days, exhibitors and delegates turned conversations into commitments that will have a measurable impact. Chief among headline developments was GE Aerospace’s US$300 million pledge to expand engine repair capabilities in Singapore through 2029—an investment that signals both confidence in the regional market and a strategic anchoring of technical capability in Southeast Asia.
Complementing such headline deals were numerous memoranda of understanding between Singapore’s Economic Development Board and global aerospace players to expand MRO capacity, establish technology centres of excellence, and accelerate next‑generation R&D initiatives. These agreements illustrated how the Airshow functions as a catalyst: not merely a showcase of products and concepts, but a marketplace where infrastructure, expertise and capital converge to enact long‑term industrial strategies.
Innovative Exhibitors & Strategic Alliances
Beyond investments, the 2026 edition highlighted the breadth of technological advancement and strategic collaboration occurring across the sector. Regional giants and global leaders used the stage to unveil new capabilities and partnerships with the potential to alter market dynamics. ST Engineering’s presentation of advanced unmanned systems and ground vehicles—paired with alliances involving Shield AI and Airbus Defence and Space—exemplified the degree to which the Airshow is a forum for market‑shaping announcements. The event’s role in convening decision‑makers meant that innovations were introduced not in isolation but alongside partners, customers and policymakers capable of accelerating adoption.
Thought Leadership: AeroForum & the Ideas That Will Drive Tomorrow
The Singapore Airshow’s thought‑leadership programme, AeroForum, delivered its most robust edition yet. Over three days, more than 50 speakers engaged nearly 1,000 delegates across 15 strategic sessions that interrogated the critical issues defining aviation and defence today—and tomorrow. Curated in partnership with Alton Aviation Consultancy, Aviation Week Network, Bloomberg, FlightGlobal and NexAvian, the programme tackled cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, sustainable aviation, advanced air mobility, civil aviation market outlooks, and defence trends. These discussions did more than inform; they helped prioritize agendas, shape research pathways, and guide policy conversations that will ripple through the sector in the coming years.
Workforce, Education & the Next Generation: AeroCampus
Recognising that people and talent underpin technological progress, Singapore Airshow expanded its AeroCampus to its largest scale yet, hosting 23 exhibitors across commercial, government and education sectors. This growth reflected an understanding that meeting demand for skilled personnel—across MRO, engineering, software, and autonomous systems—requires deliberate partnership between industry and educational institutions. By spotlighting career pathways, training initiatives and collaborative education models, the Airshow reinforced its role in nurturing the human capital essential to sustaining long‑term industry advancement.
Regional Resilience & Strategic Priorities
The 2026 Airshow also underlined the resilience of the aerospace and defence sector amid geopolitical shifts, supply‑chain recalibrations and the transformational pressures of decarbonisation and digitalisation. The event’s diversity of participants—from defence delegations to commercial carriers, from start‑ups to multinational OEMs—created a rare convergence of perspectives that enriched strategic dialogue. Governments and industry leaders used the forum to signal commitments to capability building, interoperability and partnerships that reflect both regional security imperatives and commercial opportunity.
A Platform for Partnership & Progress
At its core, Singapore Airshow 2026 reaffirmed the show’s identity as more than an exhibition: it is a platform where relationships are forged, strategies are aligned, and investments are mobilised. The impressive metrics—65,000 trade attendees, 1,100+ participating companies, and a high return-intention rate—are more than statistics; they are evidence of an ecosystem that trusts the Airshow to deliver value. From high‑value transactions to the incubation of policy ideas and workforce initiatives, the event propelled outcomes that will shape aviation and defence across the Asia‑Pacific and beyond.
Two Decades of Aviation Through the Lens
There is a particular kind of electricity in the air when an aircraft appears on the horizon: a promise of speed, engineering, courage and the eternal human urge to rise. Over the past two decades, Singapore Airshow has become one of the continent’s most luminous stages for that promise, and to celebrate this milestone, the event unveiled AeroLens — a photography showcase that distills twenty years of flight into images that resonate with power, precision, and emotion. AeroLens is more than a gallery; it is a time machine, a love letter and a public archive all at once. It invites viewers to reconnect with the moments that have defined modern aviation and rediscover why airplanes continue to capture the imagination across generations.
Photography and aviation share an intimate kinship. Both are built on timing and perspective, on the practiced ability to freeze or to frame a fleeting instant. Through AeroLens, contributors including MAphotoSG and Plane’s Portrait Aviation Media have assembled a curated collection that charts the evolving aesthetics, technologies and theatricality of flight. The portraits of jets and helos, the frozen arcs of contrails against sapphire skies, the close-up details of rivets and cockpit glass — each photograph is a micro-essay on discipline and design. Some images showcase thunderous power: afterburners blazing, formations carved with geometric precision. Others capture quieter, human moments: maintenance crews working in concentrated silence, pilots sharing a grin before takeoff, families gazing skyward in wonder. Together, these images map a rich emotional geography that traces how aviation has matured and how public engagement with flight has deepened.
AeroLens also serves as a visual chronicle of Singapore Airshow’s evolution. From early editions shaped by a handful of spectacular acts to a contemporary event that attracts global teams and millions of admirers, the Airshow’s growth is evident in aircraft liveries, the scale and complexity of aerial choreography, and the diversity of visitors who now turn out year after year. The photographs are a record of milestones — debut performances, historic displays, and the technological leaps that have introduced audiences to new aircraft and capabilities. But they are also monuments to memory: the shared exhilaration when a formation roars overhead, the hush before an aerobatic team’s perfect roll, and the communal celebration when industry meets public fascination on the showground.
The Weekend@Airshow public days on 7–8 February, which drew 60,000 visitors, revealed how photography and live spectacle can combine to infect a broad audience with wonder. The crowd that flocked to the showground experienced world-class aerial performances that were, in many ways, living complements to AeroLens’s still images. Eight distinct flying displays — by the Republic of Singapore Air Force Aerial Display Team, Airbus, Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, Ltd., the Indian Air Force Sarang Helicopter Display Team, the Indonesian Air Force Jupiter Aerobatic Team, the People’s Liberation Army Air Force Bayi Aerobatic Team, the Royal Australian Air Force and the Royal Malaysian Air Force — unpacked aerobatic artistry and technical mastery across diverse styles and traditions. Each team brought its own choreography and cultural signature, producing a sonic and visual tapestry that thrilled spectators and validated the photographs’ captured moments.
Complementing the skyborne theatre were up-close aircraft encounters that allowed visitors to bridge the gap between image and object. More than 30 aircraft at the Static Aircraft Display Area opened their panels and doors, offering the public an intimate look at military and commercial platforms. For many, being able to step inside a cockpit or inspect the fuselage up close is a visceral lesson in scale, engineering and human ingenuity — a lesson no photograph, however sublime, can fully replace. Yet AeroLens deepens that experience: photographs hung near the static displays provide context, narrative and deeper appreciation, allowing visitors to view the machines through the twin lenses of art and engineering.
The Airshow’s appeal is intergenerational, and the organisers ensured there were interactive experiences for fans of all ages and interests. Pilot autograph sessions offered moments of personal connection; mascots Leo and Leonette, alongside Captain Ted, brought theatrical joy to families and children; cockpit experiences and aviation-themed arts and crafts opened doors to imagination and potential career pathways; hands-on technology showcases gave curious minds a tactile sense of the innovations that drive the industry; and exclusive memorabilia in the Captain’s Den gave collectors and enthusiasts cherished keepsakes. These interactive layers animated the photographs in AeroLens: the still images appeared as living stories, each one amplified by the laughter, curiosity and reverence of real people exploring aviation up close.
What stands out across the Airshow and the AeroLens showcase is an abiding sense of optimism. Aviation has always been an engine of connection — of economies, cultures and lives — and the past twenty years have underlined both its resilience and its capacity for reinvention. The photographs collected for AeroLens demonstrate not only the technical advances that enabled faster, safer, and more spectacular flight but also the human narratives woven into every airframe. They remind us that behind every sortie are teams of engineers, pilots, ground crews, families and advocates who nurture the possibility of flight.
Moreover, AeroLens encourages reflection on the role of public displays and cultural events in shaping perceptions of aviation. Airshows turn what might otherwise be closed, technical worlds into shared public spectacles. They democratise access to cockpits and memories, invite conversations between industry and lay audiences, and cultivate new generations of pilots, engineers and enthusiasts. The images in AeroLens thus function as both a celebration and an invitation: they celebrate accomplishments and milestones, and they invite future participation, curiosity, and stewardship.
Two decades provide a generous arc of history: enough time to see trends emerge, repeat, and evolve, and enough time to accumulate moments that, in retrospect, feel iconic. The AeroLens collection capitalises on that span to produce a narrative of continuity and change. One can trace shifts in formation styles, new paint schemes, the arrival of next-generation aircraft, and subtle changes in how crowds engage with displays. But perhaps the most striking throughline in the photographs is timeless: people still look upward with the same wide-eyed awe, pilots still make tiny, exquisite corrections to hold a formation, and engineers still find fresh ways to solve age-old aerodynamic puzzles.
As Singapore Airshow turns another page, AeroLens stands as a luminous testament to the event’s cultural and technical legacy. It is both retrospective and forward-looking — a showcase that honours the defining moments and memories of the past two decades while stoking anticipation for what the next decades will bring. If the Airshow’s skyward performances demonstrate the present state of flight, the photographs in AeroLens are the echo that lingers images that slow down the spectacle just long enough for us to feel its full force.
Looking Ahead
As the industry digests announcements and converts partnerships into operational progress, Singapore Airshow’s role as a convening force is set to deepen. The record attendance and substantive deals of 2026 suggest a future in which Asia‑Pacific not only participates in but leads key dimensions of aerospace and defence innovation—from MRO hubs and R&D centres to advanced air mobility and defence technologies. With the overwhelming majority of participants already eyeing a return in 2028, the Airshow is poised to remain the region’s definitive forum for translating ambition into action.
