Most of us are now aware that Singapore Airlines is flying very few passenger services from Changi Airport each day, since early April through to at least the end of June 2020. In fact there are between just two and eight daily passenger departures, depending on the day of the week, with some of the 15 cities on the list receiving only a once weekly connection.
That doesn’t mean all other Singapore Airlines flights are grounded, however. At least a dozen SIA flights leave Changi each day carrying only cargo, either in the underfloor holds of passenger aircraft or in one of the airline’s seven dedicated Boeing 747 freighter jets.
Here’s how the airline’s 145 departures from Changi last week looked.
| Singapore Airlines SIN Departures (w/c 20th April 2020) |
|||
| Day | Passenger Aircraft |
Freighters |
|
| Pax + Cargo |
Cargo- only |
||
| Mon | 5 | 10 | 4 |
| Tue | 2 | 7 | 4 |
| Wed | 6 | 16 | 4 |
| Thu | 3 | 14 | 6 |
| Fri | 8 | 11 | 3 |
| Sat | 2 | 11 | 6 |
| Sun | 7 | 11 | 4 |
| Total | 34 | 80 | 31 |
As you can see cargo-only operations by the passenger fleet far outweigh any other kind of flights at the moment, making up over half the airline’s flying activity. There are up to 16 daily departures in this category (compared to a maximum of 8 daily passenger flights and 6 daily dedicated freighter ones).
Which routes?
Where are these 80 belly hold cargo services operating? We took a look at last week’s schedule to get an idea and listed them in the following table alongside the airline’s passenger services (which incidentally will also be carrying as much cargo as possible to maximise revenue).
Key:
| ■ | Cargo-only flight |
| ■ | Passenger and cargo flight |
| ■ | Cargo outbound, pax and cargo inbound |
As you can see, there is significant cargo activity to and from China and Hong Kong, including 11 weekly services to Beijing and 21 per week to Shanghai (only one of these flights each week also accepts passengers).
There are also several cargo-only flights using passenger aircraft to Australia and even some to Europe.
| Singapore Airlines Passenger Fleet Activity SIN Departures (w/c 20th April 2020) |
|||||||||
| South East Asia | |||||||||
| Dest | Flt | Days | Acft | ||||||
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S | |||
| BKK | SQ976 | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | 787 | |||
| BWN | SQ148 | ■ | 773 | ||||||
| CGK | SQ960 | ■ | ■ | ■ | 787 | ||||
| SQ966 | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | 359 | |||
| HAN | SQ176 | ■ | ■ | 359R | |||||
| KUL | SQ104 | ■ | ■ | ■ | 359 | ||||
| MNL | SQ910 | ■ | ■ | 359R | |||||
| SGN | SQ178 | ■ | ■ | 787 | |||||
| SQ186 | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | 787 | |
| North Asia | |||||||||
| Dest | Flt | Days | Acft | ||||||
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S | |||
| ICN | SQ600 | ■ | 787 | ||||||
| ■ | ■ | 359 R | |||||||
| CAN | SQ850 | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | 787 | |||
| PEK | SQ802 | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | 359R |
| SQ806 | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | 77W | ||||
| NRT | SQ12 | ■ | 787 | ||||||
| ■ | 773 | ||||||||
| SQ638 | ■ | ■ | ■ | 787 | |||||
| PVG | SQ828 | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | 77W |
| SQ830 | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | 787 | |
| SQ836 | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | 787 | |
| TPE | SQ876 | ■ | 787 | ||||||
| HKG | SQ8252 | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | 787 | |
| South West Pacific | |||||||||
| Dest | Flt | Days | Acft | ||||||
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S | |||
| BNE | SQ265 | ■ | 359 | ||||||
| MEL | SQ217 | ■ | ■ | 359 | |||||
| SQ227 | ■ | ■ | 77W | ||||||
| PER | SQ213 | ■ | ■ | 787 | |||||
| SQ223 | ■ | ■ | 787 | ||||||
| SYD | SQ211 | ■ | ■ | ■ | 77W | ||||
| ■ | ■ | 773 | |||||||
| SQ221 | ■ | ■ | 77W | ||||||
| SQ241 | ■ | ■ | 773 | ||||||
| Europe / USA | |||||||||
| Dest | Flt | Days | Acft | ||||||
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S | |||
| CPH | SQ352 | ■ | 359 | ||||||
| FRA | SQ26 | ■ | ■ | 77W | |||||
| SQ326 | ■ | ■ | ■ | 77W | |||||
| LAX | SQ38 | ■ | ■ | ■ | 359 | ||||
| LHR | SQ322 | ■ | ■ | ■ | 359 | ||||
| ZRH | SQ346 | ■ | ■ | ■ | ■ | 77W | |||
You probably thought Melbourne and Perth were both off the network for the time being. In fact they each see four flights a week with passenger aircraft only carrying cargo on board. Even Copenhagen is still being served, and SQ26 to Frankfurt lives on twice per week in addition to the three times weekly SQ326 flights.
Here are the top five routes for cargo-only flights using the passenger fleet:
- Shanghai: 20/week
- Beijing: 11/week
- Ho Chi Minh: 7/week
- Hong Kong: 6/week
- Sydney: 6/week
Aircraft types
One thing that’s clear to see from the table above is that Singapore Airlines is focusing its cargo-only operations (and remaining passenger flights for that matter) on three aircraft types:
- Boeing 777-300s / -300ERs
- Boeing 787-10s
- Airbus A350-900s
We’ve had SIA crew share with us passenger loads as low as 4 (on a flight earlier this week), and not much higher than 30 on the bare bones passenger network, so this would make you think Singapore Airlines would utilise its lower capacity aircraft where possible at the moment – like the 285-seat Airbus A330, not the 337-seat Boeing 787-10.
In fact as we mentioned in our recent fleet update, cargo capacity is driving the decision, as shown in the following table.
| Singapore Airlines Fleet Underfloor cargo capacity (highest to lowest) |
||
| Aircraft Type | Cargo Capacity | |
| Bulk loading | LD3 containers | |
| 777-300 / -300ER | 201.6 cu m | 44 |
| 787-10 | 191.4 cu m | 40 |
| A380-800 | 175.2 cu m | 38 |
| A350-900 | 172.4 cu m | 36 |
| A330-300 | 158.4 cu m | 32 |
| 777-200 / -200ER | 150.9 cu m | 32 |
| A350-900 ULR | 85.7 cu m | 16 |
Obviously the Airbus A380 has a reasonable cargo capacity, but at close to double the hourly operating cost of an A350 it makes no sense to use these aircraft for that purpose and indeed the entire superjumbo fleet is now stored either in Changi or at Alice Springs in Australia.
The Airbus A350 ULR has a deactivated forward cargo hold, severely limiting its cargo carrying capacity as you can see in the table above.
This is probably one of the main reasons SIA’s three times weekly non-stop Los Angeles flights have switched from the A350 ULR to the 3-class A350-900. With tiny passenger loads compared to usual, the airline can at least capitalise on more than double the usual cargo capacity.
Singapore Airlines will also start carrying some cargo in its passenger cabins on these flights using passenger aircraft, according to The Straits Times, after a successful trial earlier this month.
The airline says it can add up to 30% more cargo capacity this way, by utilising overhead locker space and strapping cargo to seats in addition to filling the underfloor cargo hold.
One downside is that the loading process takes up to eight hours and requires three times more staff than usual.
What about the dedicated freighters?
For the first time in a while, Singapore Airlines probably wishes it had more than seven Boeing 747-400 Freighter aircraft in its fleet!
The sub-fleet has found it hard to make a profit over the last few years, with the cargo division’s own Air Operator Certificate cancelled in 2018 as the company was merged back into Singapore Airlines itself.
Fortunes in the industry have changed due to COVID-19 of course, with air cargo payment rates said to have soared as the industry struggles to meet the demands of global supply chains without its biggest source of capacity – the cargo holds of passenger aircraft.
Take a large global carrier like British Airways for example. Every year the airline, which has no dedicated freighters of its own, carries over 600,000 tonnes of cargo in the holds of its passenger aircraft – more than 1,600 tonnes per day. Right now, that’s fallen to practically nil.
Even Singapore Airlines, with seven dedicated freighter jumbos, carries 75% of all its cargo on its passenger aircraft in a typical year.
Where the freighters are flying
These Boeing 747 aircraft are of course working hard at the moment, but they generally always were even before the COVID-19 crisis. There isn’t much more flying the airline can extract from them.
Routes include cities in Europe, the Middle East, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and the USA.
Interestingly North Asia isn’t significantly covered, suggesting that SIA usually relies more on its extensive passenger network in that region to carry cargo, and perhaps explaining the heavy concentration of cargo-only flights using the passenger fleet to the likes of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hong Kong, as we saw in the table above.
For those interested in what the freighters were up to last week, here are the (sometimes mammoth) journeys they took:
Monday 20th April 2020
- Singapore – Sydney – Singapore
- Singapore – Hong Kong – Anchorage – Los Angeles – Brussels – Mumbai – Singapore
- Singapore – Bengaluru – Sharjah – Amsterdam – Sharjah – Singapore
- Singapore – Hong Kong – Singapore
Tuesday 21st April 2020
- Singapore – Sydney – Singapore
- Singpore – Sydney – Auckland – Melbourne – Singapore
- Singapore – Shanghai – Singapore
- Singapore – Hong Kong – Singapore
Wednesday 22nd April 2020
- Singapore – Chennai – Sharjah – Amsterdam – Sharjah – Singapore
- Singapore – Sydney – Melbourne – Auckland – Singapore
- Singapore – Hong Kong – Anchorage – Los Angeles – Brussels – Sharjah – Singapore
- Singapore – Hong Kong – Singapore
Thursday 23rd April 2020
- Singapore – Hong Kong – Anchorage – Dallas – Brussels – Mumbai – Singapore
- Singapore – Sydney – Singapore
- Singapore – Sharjah – London – Amsterdam – Sharjah – Singapore
- Singapore – Johannesburg – Singapore
- Singapore – Shanghai – Singapore
- Singapore – Sydney – Auckland – Singapore
Friday 24th April 2020
- Singapore – Hong Kong – Singapore
- Singapore – Shanghai – Singapore
- Singapore – Hong Kong – Singapore
Saturday 25th April 2020
- Singapore – Sydney – Singapore
- Singapore – Hong Kong – Anchorage – Dallas – Brussels – Sharjah – Singapore
- Singapore – Sharjah – Amsterdam – Sharjah – Singapore
- Singapore – Sharjah – London – Amsterdam – Sharjah – Singapore
- Singapore – Melbourne – Auckland – Melbourne – Singapore
- Singapore – Hong Kong – Singapore
26th April 2020
- Singapore – Chennai – Amsterdam – Sharjah – Singapore
- Singapore – Sydney – Melbourne – Singapore
- Singapore – Shanghai – Singapore
- Singapore – Sharjah – Amsterdam – Sharjah – Singapore
Summary
Cargo is bigger business for Singapore Airlines than it has been for a very long time due to the drop in capacity brought about by severely reduced schedules for passenger flights across all airlines since the COVID-19 outbreak.
More Singapore Airlines aircraft are now departing Changi each day with only pilots up front and cargo in the holds than do so with passengers on board.
Indeed nearly 3 out of every 4 of SIA’s passenger aircraft you see taking off from Changi at the moment have no passengers on them at all, a highly unusual arrangement for an airline more used to carrying nearly 60,000 customers per day.
With a skeleton passenger flying schedule extended to 30th June 2020, expect to see more Singapore Airlines aircraft flying these cargo-only services over the coming weeks.