Singapore Airlines Fleet & Storage Report: August 2020

The slow increase in Singapore Airlines flights over the last few months sees the airline moving towards around 8% of usual capacity levels by October 2020, with the carrier currently deploying around 56 of its passenger aircraft on a mixture of both regular and cargo-only flights based on the last two weeks.

Operation of the airline’s less efficient Boeing 777-300 and Boeing 777-300ER aircraft types has been almost completely eliminated since our last update, even on cargo flights, with the airline concentrating its services on Airbus A350s and Boeing 787s almost across the board.

Meanwhile another Airbus A380 has made its way to Alice Springs for long-term storage and SIA has restored six former NokScoot Boeing 777-200s into its registered fleet, following the demise of that carrier a couple of months ago.

Five SIA aircraft types remain firmly out of service, including all Airbus A330s and Airbus A380s.

Headline numbers

Here are the Singapore Airlines passenger fleet totals at 12th August 2020.

	CAAS Database:	131
	For disposal:	-7
	In Service:	124
	In maintenance / stored:	-68
	Active:	56

The official registered aircraft data in combination with analysis of actual flight movements over the last few weeks allows us to determine the actual ‘in service’ fleet (available to the airline) of 124 planes at 12th August 2020, 56 of which are currently active.

Click here to see the official CAAS list of registered aircraft in Singapore at 31st July 2020.

Singapore Airlines Fleet at 12th August 2020

This table shows the Singapore Airlines fleet including how many of each aircraft type are legally registered (‘Registered’), available to the airline (‘In Service’) and currently operating revenue passenger or cargo flights (‘Active’).

Type	Registered	In Service	Active
A330-300 (full details)	8	8	0
A350-900 (full details)	26	26	23
A350-900 Regional (full details)	15	15	14
A350-900 ULR (full details)	7	7	0
A380-800 v1 (full details)	6	6	0
A380-800 v2 (full details)	5	5	0
A380-800 v3 (full details)	8	8	0
777-200 (full details)	7	0	0
777-200ER (full details)	3	3	0
777-300 (full details)	4	4	1
777-300ER (full details)	27	27	4
787-10 (full details)	15	15	14
Total	131	124	56

Correct at 12th August 2020.

Here are the differences between the registered and in service fleet totals in the table above:

No longer in service (but still legally registered)

• 777-200 9V-SQJ has already stopped flying for disposal.
• 777-200s 9V-SRG, -SRH, -SRL, SRJ, SRP and SRQ are ex-NokScoot aircraft and re-joined the Singapore Airlines registered fleet in July 2020. They are all stored in Alice Springs and will not operate again for the airline. For eventual disposal.

Fleet activity

Only five aircraft types remain in service with the airline, as shown in the table below outlining the number in use at each of our recent fleet update ‘snapshots’.

SIA fleet activity timeline
Aircraft	Apr 2020	May 2020	Jun 2020	Aug 2020
Airbus A350	16	14	21	23
Airbus A350 Regional	10	9	12	14
Boeing 777-300	4	3	2	1
Boeing 777-300ER	18	18	11	4
Boeing 787-10	15	15	15	14

Almost all Airbus A350s and Boeing 787-10s are now in consistent use, while the deployment of Boeing 777-300s and -300ERs has been progressively reduced to almost zero in recent weeks.

Here’s a graphical look at the active vs. stored fleet, including the average daily utilisation of the active aircraft during the last 14 days.

The average daily utilisation of active aircraft is lowest for the few Boeing 777-300 and -300ERs that remain flying, at around 1.5 hours per day. Those fly only a handful of times a week based on data from the last 14 days.

Airbus A350s and Boeing 787s on the other hand are far busier, with the active aircraft in those fleets clocking up six to eight hours per day on average.

This still falls short of usual utilisation rates for these aircraft however, in the order of 11-12 hours per day.

Five aircraft types in the Singapore Airlines fleet remain in storage this month and are not currently being flown at all, which has been the case since early April 2020:

• Airbus A330
• Airbus A350 ULR
• Airbus A380
• Boeing 777-200
• Boeing 777-200ER

Fleet disposals

Three aircraft permanently left the Singapore Airlines fleet since our last update:

• 777-200 9V-SQN, which was re-registered to Boeing Aircraft Holding Co. as N785BC on 10th June 2020 and flew to Phoenix Goodyear Airport for storage on 18th June 2020.
• 777-200ER 9V-SVM, which was re-registered to Boeing Aircraft Holding Co. as N784BC on 17th July 2020 and flew to Phoenix Goodyear Airport for storage on 23rd July 2020.
• 777-300 9V-SYI, which was re-registered to Boeing Aircraft Holding Co. as N792BC on 21st July 2020 and flew to Phoenix Goodyear Airport for storage on 30th July 2020.

While the 777-200s were expected, this marks the first Boeing 777-300 disposal from the fleet in over three years, suggesting the four remaining aircraft (three of which are now stored as you’ll see below) are on borrowed time.

Fleet additions

No new aircraft deliveries this month, however the demise of NokScoot meant Singapore Airlines took back six Boeing 777-200s in July 2020, aircraft it owns outright and which were on operating leases to the Thai low-cost carrier.

NokScoot Aircraft returned to SIA (July 2020)
Registration	Previous Registration		Age (years)
	NokScoot	Scoot
9V-SRG	HS-XBB	9V-OTF	19.2
9V-SRH	HS-XBC	—	19.1
9V-SRJ	HS-XBD	—	18.6
9V-SRL	HS-XBE	—	18.0
9V-SRP	HS-XBF	—	16.9
9V-SRQ	HS-XBG	—	16.9

The SIA Group took a one-off charge of S$127m in Q1 of FY20/21, from write downs of the NokScoot’s seven Boeing 777-200s, including provisions for liquidation costs.

The one remaining aircraft, HS-XBA (formerly 9V-SRF) has not been transferred back to the Singapore register as of 31st July 2020. It will presumably follow in the next update.

The flying network

August to October 2020 sees the busiest passenger schedule for Singapore Airlines services since most flights were cut in April 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

By October 2020, 29 passenger routes will be served with over 160 weekly services offered. The latest cities on the list include Milan, Istanbul and Perth.

There are also five SilkAir routes by early September, plus 12 Scoot routes, though in both cases there is some overlap with existing SIA destinations.

Fun fact: For every passenger flight operated by Singapore Airlines at the moment there are three cargo-only flights using passenger aircraft, covering a much wider network of cities.

The storage report: August 2020

Here’s how the fleet activity looked on 1