Singapore Airlines (SIA) is planning robust expansion in flight schedules, especially in the East-Asian countries. With the approaching winter season, the airline expects to make most of the travel demand as the pandemic restrictions are being lifted in most Asian destinations like Hong Kong, Japan, etc.
This will allow SIA and Scoot to meet the buoyant demand for international travel, particularly towards the year-end holiday season and in the first quarter of 2023.
JoAnn Tan, Senior Vice President of Marketing Planning, Singapore Airlines, said: “Buoyed by the further easing of entry requirements in Hong Kong SAR, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, China we are seeing strong demand for air travel towards the year-end holiday season. Many customers are especially keen on destinations that have remained largely closed over the last few years. The SIA Group aims to offer even more value and options for our customers as they make their holiday plans, and we will be nimble in adjusting our services in response to the demand for air travel.”
From 30 October 2022, SIA will add an additional daily service to Tokyo’s Haneda Airport, on top of the existing daily flight to Haneda and to Tokyo’s Narita Airport. With the added services, SIA will operate four daily services in Tokyo. Besides SIA will restart operations to Osaka twice daily and Fukuoka thrice weekly.
Currently, Scoot operates daily flights to Tokyo (Narita), as well as four-time weekly flights to Tokyo (Narita) via Taipei, and five-times weekly flights to Osaka.
SIA is also planning a new daily service to Seoul, the new flight along with the current daily services will bring SIA’s operations to Seoul, thrice daily. Besides SIA will reinstate a four-time weekly service to Taipei over and above the current three-times weekly Taipei flight. SIA also aims to increase its twice-daily services to Hong Kong SAR, to three-times daily, subject to regulatory approvals.
SIA is also planning to ramp up the operations in China, with already reinstated twice-weekly Beijing-Singapore services on 27 September 2022, SIA plans to resume a weekly service to Chengdu from 11 October 2022 and aims to increase frequencies and resume services to more points in mainland China, subject to regulatory approvals.