As most of our readers will be aware, Singapore Airlines is grounding almost its entire fleet and the vast majority of its worldwide flight schedules during April 2020 as a result of the coronavirus situation, resulting in extensive border restrictions both in Singapore and across much of its global network.
The airline has been progressively releasing its revised flight schedules for this month, initially with details of flights until 11th April then later loading additional services into GDS right through to 30th of the month.
At first it was a very short list covering just five cities with around 170 flights between them, however the airline has now finalised its April flying programme adding almost as many flights again. The full list shows the group maintaining services several times a week to some key destinations like Bangkok, London and Sydney.
In total 308 Singapore Airlines and SilkAir flights will be flown this month, a 97% reduction by flight volumes on the 10,700 services originally planned to be operated by the two carriers in April.
Additionally, SIA’s budget arm Scoot will operate 48 passenger services during the month, out of 4,600 initially planned, a 99% drop.
Flights still operating
Singapore Airlines and SilkAir will be running the following passenger flights to and from 15 cities during April 2020.
All flights not listed below are cancelled during this period, or will operate as cargo only services.
| SIA Flights Operating (1 – 30 Apr 2020) |
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| Bangkok (BKK) | |||
| Flight | Route | Days | Aircraft |
| SQ976 | SIN – BKK | Mon, Fri, Sun | 787 (until 6 Apr) 359 R (from 10 Apr) |
| SQ979 | BKK – SIN | Mon, Fri, Sun | 787 (until 6 Apr) 359 R (from 10 Apr) |
| Frankfurt (FRA) | |||
| Flight | Route | Days | Aircraft |
| SQ326 | SIN – FRA | Wed, Fri, Sun | 77W |
| SQ325 | FRA – SIN | Mon, Thu, Sat | 77W |
| Hanoi (HAN) | |||
| Flight | Route | Days | Aircraft |
| SQ175 | HAN – SIN | Fri | 359 R |
| Ho Chi Minh (SGN) | |||
| Flight | Route | Days | Aircraft |
| SQ177 | SGN – SIN | Mon, Thu | 787 (until 9 Apr) 333 (from 13 Apr) |
| Jakarta (CGK) | |||
| Flight | Route | Days | Aircraft |
| SQ966 | SIN – CGK | Daily (ex. Tue, Sat) | 359 |
| SQ967 | CGK – SIN | Daily (ex. Tue, Sat) | 359 |
| Kuala Lumpur (KUL) | |||
| Flight | Route | Days | Aircraft |
| SQ104 | SIN – KUL | Mon, Wed, Fri | 359 (until 10 Apr) 333 (from 13 Apr) |
| SQ105 | KUL – SIN | Mon, Wed, Fri | 359 (until 10 Apr) 333 (from 13 Apr) |
| London (LHR) | |||
| Flight | Route | Days | Aircraft |
| SQ322 | SIN – LHR | Tue, Thu, Sat | 359 (until 9 Apr) 77W (from 11 Apr) |
| SQ317 | LHR – SIN | Tue, Thu, Sat | 359 (until 9 Apr) 77W (from 11 Apr) |
| Los Angeles (LAX) | |||
| Flight | Route | Days | Aircraft |
| SQ38 | SIN – LAX | Wed, Fri, Sun | 359 (until 10 Apr) 359 ULR (from 12 Apr) |
| SQ37 | LAX – SIN | Mon, Thu, Sat | 359 (until 11 Apr) 359 ULR (from 13 Apr) |
| Manila (MNL) | |||
| Flight | Route | Days | Aircraft |
| SQ910 | SIN – MNL | Mon, Fri | 359 R |
| SQ917 | MNL – SIN | Mon, Fri | 359 R |
| Seoul (ICN) | |||
| Flight | Route | Days | Aircraft |
| SQ600 | SIN – ICN | Wed, Sat | 359 R |
| SQ609 | ICN – SIN | Wed, Sat | 359 R |
| Shanghai (PVG) | |||
| Flight | Route | Days | Aircraft |
| SQ830 | SIN – PVG | Mon | 787 |
| SQ833 | PVG – SIN | Mon | 787 |
| Sydney (SYD) | |||
| Flight | Route | Days | Aircraft |
| SQ211 | SIN – SYD | Tue, Fri, Sun | 77W |
| SQ232 | SYD – SIN | Mon, Wed, Sat | 77W |
| Tokyo (NRT) | |||
| Flight | Route | Days | Aircraft |
| SQ638 | SIN – NRT | Wed, Fri, Sat | 787 (until 11 Apr) 388v3 (from 15 Apr) |
| SQ637 | NRT – SIN | Wed, Fri, Sat | 787 (until 11 Apr) 388v3 (from 15 Apr) |
| Zurich (ZRH) | |||
| Flight | Route | Days | Aircraft |
| SQ346 | SIN – ZRH | Wed, Fri, Sun | 77W |
| SQ345 | ZRH – SIN | Mon, Thu, Sat | 77W |
Note that daily SQ802/807 Beijing flights are continuing to operate during this period as belly-hold cargo only services.
There are some interesting flying patterns here, for example Los Angeles will be served by the 3-class A350 for the first time ever during early April before reverting to the A350 ULR later in the month.
On the Frankfurt and Zurich flights, the operating aircraft will actually remain on the ground in Europe for 24 hours before operating the return sector, presumably with the same set of crew, keeping overseas layovers at a minimum during the significant COVID-19 outbreak in that region.
| SilkAir Flights Operating (1 – 30 Apr 2020) |
|||||||||
| Chongqing (CKG) | |||||||||
| Flight | Route | Days | Aircraft | ||||||
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S | |||
| MI972 | SIN – CKG | ■ | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ | 738 |
| MI971 | CKG – SIN | ■ | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ | 738 |
SilkAir will only be flying four return services to Chongqing in China during April, with plans to continue operating to and from Brunei on behalf of SIA now shelved.
| Scoot Flights Operating (1 – 30 Apr 2020) |
|||||||||
| Hong Kong (HKG) | |||||||||
| Flight | Route | Days | Aircraft | ||||||
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S | |||
| TR980 | SIN – HKG | □ | ■ | □ | □ | ■ | □ | ■ | 789 |
| TR981 | HKG – SIN | □ | ■ | □ | □ | ■ | □ | ■ | 789 |
| Perth (PER) | |||||||||
| Flight | Route | Days | Aircraft | ||||||
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S | |||
| TR8 | SIN – PER | □ | ■ | □ | □ | □ | □ | ■ | 789 |
| TR9 | PER – SIN | □ | ■ | □ | □ | □ | □ | ■ | 789 |
| TR16 | SIN – PER | □ | □ | □ | □ | ■ | □ | □ | 789 |
| TR17 | PER – SIN | □ | □ | □ | □ | ■ | □ | □ | 789 |
Aside from Scoot’s cargo-only flights, which we understand are still operating on certain days to Nanjing and Guangzhou, the airline will operate three times weekly passenger services to Hong Kong and Perth.
This will be the group’s only presence to and from those two cities during April, for passenger services at least.
Cargo only flights
Do note that while the flights listed above are available for passenger booking, Singapore Airlines and Scoot are both conducting cargo only operations to destinations including Nanjing, Beijing, Auckland and Perth.
What it means for the fleet
In March Singapore Airlines announced that a total 185 of the group’s 196 aircraft will be grounded in April 2020, leaving only 11 operating.
The SIA schedules are complicated to work out because many overlapping services are scheduled on the same day of the week, plus for some of the Europe flights the aircraft rests overseas for 24 hours.
It’s therefore a bit difficult to calculate exactly how many aircraft the mainline carrier will have in service at any one time during the month.
What we can see from the flying programme and the proposed aircraft types currently loaded in GDS is that five aircraft types won’t be flying at all in April, as highlighted in red below.
 |
Singapore Airlines | |
| Aircraft Type | Routes | |
| Airbus A330 | Ho Chi Minh, Kuala Lumpur | |
| Airbus A350 | Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, London, Los Angeles | |
| Airbus A350 Regional | Bangkok, Hanoi, Manila, Seoul | |
| Airbus A350 ULR | Los Angeles | |
| Airbus A380v1 | — | |
| Airbus A380v2 | — | |
| Airbus A380v3 | Tokyo | |
| Boeing 777-200 | — | |
| Boeing 777-200ER | — | |
| Boeing 777-300 | — | |
| Boeing 777-300ER | Frankfurt, London, Sydney, Zurich | |
| Boeing 787 | Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh, Shanghai, Tokyo | |
With only a single Boeing 777-200 left in the operating fleet, it’s quite possible that we’ll never see this type operating for SIA again.
The aircraft, 9V-SQN, last flew on 20th March 2020.
For SilkAir it’s a simple once per week flying programme for passenger flights, so only a single Boeing 737-800 will remain (slightly) active during the month.
 |
SilkAir | ||
| Aircraft Type | Number | Routes | |
| Boeing 737-800 | 1 | Chongqing | |
| Total | 1 | ||
Scoot has abandoned plans to operate some Kuala Lumpur, Ipoh and Jakarta flights on the A320, leaving only a pair of Boeing 787-9s to fly the Hong Kong and Perth flights.
 |
Scoot | ||
| Aircraft Type | Number | Routes | |
| Boeing 787-9 | 2 | Hong Kong, Perth Cargo only: Guangzhou, Nanjing |
|
| Total | 2 | ||
These aircraft will also be used for cargo only operations.
May onwards
Currently Singapore Airlines shows an optimistic schedule in GDS from 1st May 2020, with routes like Sydney seeing 10 flights per week and Perth back to twice daily operation.
These plans are subject to significant further cuts based on the coronavirus situation closer to the time, so we expect a revised service reduction list for May 2020 to be announced in due course.
Summary
With additional passenger flights planned than originally loaded in the schedule for April 2020 at our last update, Singapore Airlines will retain some connections to Europe, the US and Australia after all, despite cutting overall flight volumes by 97% across the mainline carrier and full service regional subsidiary SilkAir.
Jakarta sees the most services, continuing to operate five days per week on the 3-class A350, with most other routes running between one and three times per week.
In addition to these passenger services, Singapore Airlines and Scoot are also operating belly hold cargo only flights to some other cities, including Auckland and Beijing.
It’s too early to tell at this stage how the group’s timetable will look into May 2020, though with the coronavirus situation showing little signs of improvement either in Singapore or many of the airline’s other key markets, we’re still predicting a very light schedule to extend for the weeks ahead.
Updated information on the SIA Group’s flying schedules can be found at the airline’s websites:
(Cover Photo: Kentaro Iemoto)
Singapore airlines is flying to Europe, but not to Spain, why couldn’t they put me on a flight from London or Frankfurt instead from Barcelona. SQ387 27th April was cancelled. Hope to hear from them soon, because I didn’t cancelled my ticket with them. Good luck for everyone. 🍀🇪🇦🛩🇵🇭
The confirmed Flight SQ 5415 for 19 Apr 2020 from Kathmandu to Singapore seems not appear in your Apr 2020 Schedule