Singapore Airlines cutting 214 flights, but upgrades service on San Francisco route

Singapore Airlines, the national airline of Singapore, has decided to cut as many as 214 flights to Australia, China, Europe and India in response to what it calls the falling passenger numbers.

The airline will eliminate flights – between now and March 2009 – to Hong Kong, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Mumbai, New Delhi, Perth, Sydney, Brisbane, London and Zurich.

Overall, the reductions represent nearly 3% of the total number of flights operated by Singapore Airlines.
The airline has already sent a circular to travel agents informing them of the flight cuts.

At the same time, Singapore Airlines has upgraded service on its San Francisco-Hong Kong-Singapore route by replacing the Boeing 747 aircraft with a Boeing 777-300ER on daily flights, a statement from the airline said.

The upgrade, the company said, complements the carrier’s existing San Francisco/Seoul/Singapore service. Accordingly, flight SQ1 departs San Francisco International Airport at 12:05 a.m. daily, touching down in Hong Kong at 6:55 a.m. (+ one day); the service continues to Singapore at 8:00 a.m., landing in Singapore’s Changi Airport at 11:50 a.m.

In the statement, Singapore Airlines blamed the global economic slowdown for its plan to cancel a total of 214 flights between now and March 2009 and said that the carrier’s passenger numbers were down by 7.5% year-on-year.

The airline said it carried 1.61 million passengers in December 2008, compared with 1.74 million in December 2007. It filled nearly 80% of seats, down by 4.4 percentage points year-on-year.

The Straits Times newspaper of Singapore quoted a spokesman for Singapore Airlines as remarking on the plan to cut 214 flights: “We do not want to be flying half-empty planes around the world any longer than we have to, because it increases our cost burden at a time when we can least afford to.”

Singapore Airlines, which operates a hub at Singapore’s Changi Airport, maintains a strong presence in South-east Asia, East Asia, South Asia and Australia. It may be noted that Singapore Airlines is the launch customer of the Airbus A380 Superjumbo, the world’s largest passenger plane.

Singapore Airlines had said in November 2008 that the company’s net profit for the fiscal second quarter ending September 2008 had dropped by 36.2% from the same period in the previous year because of the global economic slump.

The website travelagentcentral.com quoted a senior executive at a travel agency as saying that many Singaporeans were going for “closer and cheaper” holiday destinations such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam.