With 11 SIA Group aircraft now parked in long-term storage at Alice Springs Airport, and no realistic prospect of a return to normal airline traffic levels during the coming months, another batch of aircraft are making their way to the Aussie desert this weekend including four of the airline’s biggest jets – the Airbus A380s.
ABC Australia picked up the news yesterday that six SIA group aircraft are winging their way south this Saturday night, which will then make up a total of 17 aircraft in long-term storage across the three group airlines by the end of the week.
Aircraft moved to storage facilities like the one in Alice Springs, and perhaps more familiar ones in the Arizona and California deserts, are typically out of action for a minimum of three to four months, usually longer, so this 20% cut in Singapore Airlines’ operational A380 fleet is telling.
With global air traffic likely suppressed for at least the remainder of 2020, a maximum operational fleet of 15 A380s for Singapore Airlines already seems like more than enough.
The first relocated aircraft, TR7003 believed to be a Scoot A320, already shows in the schedules as departing from Changi at 11.45pm on Saturday night (25th April 2020), and should land into Alice Springs at around 8am local time on Sunday morning.