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When war broke out in the Middle East last week, it plunged the travel industry into the kind of chaos not seen since the pandemic. <\/span>Thousands of flights<\/a> to or from the Gulf have been canceled; Dubai and Abu Dhabi\u2019s airports <\/span>sustained damage<\/a> from Iranian weaponry. Since these countries have all staked their future on cheap and efficient connections that have knitted the U.S. East Coast and Europe to Asia and Australia for years, this is a big deal. The travel industry\u2014and therefore the flow of people and capital\u2014is about to reconfigure.<\/span><\/p>\n And Singapore is ready. Last year, its government placed a bet on the future at a time when tiny, wealthy city-states seem more fragile than ever, beginning work on a new terminal\u2014able to handle about 50 million passengers a year\u2014at its legendary Changi Airport, routinely voted the <\/span>world\u2019s best<\/a>. At the groundbreaking ceremony <\/span>in May<\/a>, Singapore prime minister Lawrence Wong drew a parallel with history that now seems a little uncanny, referring to Changi\u2019s origin story. In the 1970s, unrest in the Middle East and soaring oil prices cast a shadow over the world, <\/span>he said<\/a>, and Singapore\u2019s prime minister at the time, Lee Kuan Yew, faced a choice: Make an existing airport a little bigger, or spend far more developing a huge, entirely new, state-of-the-art location at the island\u2019s easternmost tip. Lee chose the bolder course of action, and Singapore became the global travel hub it is now.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n