6th March 2020: Singapore Airlines has updated its list of cancelled flights due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Click here for the latest information.
The recent outbreak of coronavirus (COVID-19) has had a severe impact on flights to and from China and Hong Kong in particular, with Singapore Airlines already drastically cutting its schedules to those destinations in the last few weeks, while also suspending crew layovers in China.
Like many carriers in the region, Singapore Airlines is also having to cut capacity on its network in other markets due to falling demand. This morning the airline announced a range of service cancellations on over 40 routes including Tokyo, Sydney, New York and London, between March and May 2020.
“Singapore Airlines and SilkAir will temporarily reduce services across our network due to weak demand as a result of the Covid-19 outbreak.” SIA Spokesperson
A total of 674 flights have been cancelled; 494 Singapore Airlines services and 180 SilkAir ones, representing about 2% of the two airlines departures over the period. Affected passengers will be reaccommodated onto other flights.
No single region is immune from the service reductions, however it’s North Asia destinations taking the brunt of the cuts as you might expect.
We’ve analysed how the reduction applies in percentage terms compared to the number of flights originally scheduled to operate on each route, a far more meaningful metric than the number of cancellations alone.
For example SilkAir cancelling 4 Kuala Lumpur flights in March is just a 1% reduction (barely worth mentioning), while Singapore Airlines cancelling 6 Dusseldorf flights in May is a much more significant 17% capacity cut.
| Key | % of flights cancelled |
| < 5 % | |
| 5 – 10% | |
| 10 – 15% | |