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As demand returns, Singapore International Airlines (SIA) Group is set to operate 141 weekly flights to India, restoring its pre-Covid capacity to India by October-end, said the airline’s General Manager for India, Sy Yen Chen. It will also operate its widebody aircraft on the Hyderabad route.
“We continue to remain nimble and will adjust our capacity and products to accommodate demand, ” he told BusinessLine, adding that demand has started picking up. In response to the strong demand for air travel, the SIA Group will adjust the SIA and Scoot network in the northern winter operating season (October 30 2022 to March 25 2023), he added.
Singapore and India launched a vaccinated travel lane in end-November 2021. Singapore Airlines and Scoot, part of the SIA Group, resumed scheduled passenger services to India, and have seen a steady uptick in passenger load factor. Between April to August 2022, its PLF West Asia and Africa, which includes India, rose from 79.5 per cent to 84 per cent.
“Going into the Northern Winter schedule from October 30, 2022, we will restore 100 per cent of our pre-Covid capacity from India. SIA will operate 96 flights a week from eight cities, while Scoot will operate 45 flights from 6 cities. SIA Group operations will stand at 141 flights a week from 13 cities across India,” Chen said.
Currently, the airline operates 91 weekly flights to Singapore from 8 cities across India. These are Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kochi, Kolkata, and Mumbai. In addition, SIA’s low-cost subsidiary, Scoot, operates 38 flights from 6 cities, including Amritsar, Coimbatore, Hyderabad, Tiruchirappalli, Thiruvananthapuram and Visakhapatnam, of which just one is common with SIA. This makes the SIA Group the largest non-Indian operator in terms of network footprint in India, serving 13 destinations across the country.
It resumed operations with the Airbus A380 from both Mumbai and Delhi, and in January 2022, also launched its new Boeing 737-8 Narrow Body product from Hyderabad, Kochi, and Kolkata.
“In fact, going into the Northern Winter 2022, we will also operate this new product from Bengaluru. This aircraft offers our customers all-new, fully-flat beds in Business Class. Besides, we will also launch A350 wide body services from Hyderabad, which is currently served by a narrow body product,” Chen said.
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