SIA and SilkAir plan 42 routes in December 2020, including the Maldives

Latest update: New York JFK flights have been added as the 35th SIA destination from 9th November 2020. These are now reflected in the schedules below.

Singapore Airlines and SilkAir have extended their published passenger flight schedules until the end of 2020, with one of the most significant ramp-ups we’ve seem lately adding five routes and increasing frequencies on many existing services, including daily flights to Amsterdam and 10 flights per week to key metro cities like Jakarta and Hong Kong.

This extends the confirmed timetable through to 31st December 2020, sealing a year the national carrier would likely rather forget.

Melbourne is set to become the airline’s busiest route, with 13 weekly connections, ahead of London and Sydney each receiving 12 flights per week.

Overall, schedules will lift to around 15% of usual levels by December 2020.

  Headline figures

In total SIA and SilkAir will fly 1,530 passenger flights during December 2020, a significant 70% increase on the 902 services being operated during October 2020.

“By the end of December 2020, the Group’s passenger capacity will reach approximately 15% of its pre-Covid-19 levels.”

Singapore Airlines, 2 October 2020

New routes

Singapore Airlines will add three routes in the coming months:

• Brunei (from 1 Nov)
• Dhaka (from 20 Oct)
• Fukuoka (from 5 Nov)

SilkAir meanwhile will add two routes:

• Kathmandu (from 10 Oct)
• Malé (from 1 Dec)

SilkAir will also restart its Penang flights from 25th October, which we already announced last month. The regional carrier will also operate services to and from Brunei on behalf of Singapore Airlines under its longstanding wet-lease arrangement, using Boeing 737-800 aircraft.

The Maldives allows tourism

The most interesting addition to the schedule is Malé in the Maldives, set to be served twice weekly by SilkAir using the Boeing 737-800 from December.

The Maldives has begun welcoming tourists again with its visa on arrival programme, subject to obtaining a medical certificate with a negative COVID-19 PCR test result conducted no more than 72 hours before departure.

There is no mandatory quarantine, passengers must be simply travelling as tourists and have a hotel stay booked for the duration of their visit. Details are available here.

Unfortunately for Singapore residents things aren’t so simple. Currently you can only get a voluntary pre-departure COVID-19 PCR test if you’re travelling on one of the fast lane / green lane arrangements, plus there are the thorny issues of:

• Travelling against government advice (outside green lane arrangements, the Singapore Government still advises against all overseas travel).
• Obtaining travel insurance that will cover you for COVID-19 during your trip.
• 14-days SHN in a dedicated facility at your own expense on return to Singapore (> S$2,000).
• Liability to pay unsubsidised costs for treatment on return to Singapore in the event that you contracted COVID-19 as a result of your trip.

With these restrictions in place, it’s hard to see how SilkAir has a chance of filling many (if any) of its 324 seats per week in each direction on this route, so what’s going on?

There are no Singaporeans stranded in the Maldives (to our knowledge), and even if there were they could get home via the Middle East without much difficulty.

One market the airline can tap into is transit passengers. Malé is an approved origin point for transit passengers (SIA hasn’t updated its list to reflect that yet, but it should appear next week).

That means connecting passengers, for example from New Zealand, can take a holiday in the Maldives and book with Singapore Airlines / SilkAir, then return again the same way via Changi, giving the route a small amount of custom.

It’s hard to believe this sort of routing would stimulate much demand. Like Singapore residents, New Zealanders are also advised against overseas travel, plus they would have to quarantine for 14 days on their return home.

That leads us to optimistically hope that some other plan is in the works for a potential leisure green lane between Singapore and the Maldives (it was recently proposed as a relatively straightforward arrangement), otherwise we really can’t see this route actually going ahead.

That begs the question – why even load the route? Unless they know something we don’t!

Keep your fingers crossed, and watch this space.

Singapore Airlines Schedule

Here’s a map of the 23 Asia-Pacific destinations being served by Singapore Airlines by December 2020, including the newly announced Brunei, Dhaka and Fukuoka reinstatements.

In addition, a two US destinations, nine European cities, Istanbul in Turkey and Johannesburg in South Africa will be served.

Overall the airline will increase to 1,380 monthly passenger flights by December 2020, around 16.8% of its 8,200 monthly services flown in December 2019.

Singapore Airlines will be running the following passenger route network between October and December 2020.

All routes not listed below are cancelled during this period, or will have cargo-only operation.

Singapore Airlines Routes Short-haul & Asia (Oct – Dec 2020)
City	Month			Acft
	Oct	Nov	Dec
Bangkok	3/wk	5/wk	7/wk	787
Brunei	—	1/wk	1/wk	738
Dhaka	2/wk (fm 20th)	2/wk	4/wk	359R
Fukuoka	—	1/wk	1/wk	787
Hanoi	1/wk	3/wk	3/wk	359R
Ho Chi Minh	2/wk	3/wk	3/wk	787
Hong Kong	6/wk	10/wk	10/wk	359R 787
Jakarta	7/wk	10/wk	10/wk	359
Kuala Lumpur	3/wk	3/wk	3/wk	359
Manila	2/wk	5/wk	5/wk	359R
Osaka	2/wk	5/wk	5/wk	359R
Seoul	5/wk	6/wk	6/wk	359R 787
Shanghai	1/wk	1/wk	1/wk	787
Surabaya	2/wk	2/wk	2/wk	773 77W
Taipei	3/wk	3/wk	3/wk	787
Tokyo	3/wk	5/wk	6/wk	787
Total	42/wk	65/wk	70/wk

The latest updated schedules including days of operation is available at this dedicated page on the Singapore Airlines website.

As you can see in addition to three new routes joining the passenger network there are significant frequency increases, with daily Bangkok flights and 10 times weekly services to Hong Kong and Jakarta, key metro cities in the region.

Seoul and Tokyo are also set to receive near-daily connections with six services per week.

Boeing 777-300s (and later from November Boeing 777-300ERs) are back in passenger service on the Surabaya route, though the First Class cabins are not being sold on these flights.

Singapore Airlines Routes Australia & Long-haul (Oct – Dec 2020)
City	Month			Acft
	Oct	Nov	Dec
Adelaide	1/wk	2/wk	2/wk	359R
Amsterdam	3/wk	5/wk	7/wk	359
Auckland	4/wk	5/wk	6/wk	359
Barcelona	1/wk	1/wk	1/wk	359
Brisbane	2/wk	4/wk	6/wk	359 359R
Christchurch	3/wk	3/wk	3/wk	359
Copenhagen	1/wk	2/wk	2/wk	359
Frankfurt	5/wk	5/wk	5/wk	359
Istanbul	1/wk	1/wk	1/wk	359
Johannesburg	1/wk (fm 14th)	3/wk	3/wk	359
London	12/wk	12/wk	12/wk	359
Los Angeles	3/wk	3/wk	3/wk	359
Melbourne	3/wk	7/wk	13/wk	359R
Milan	1/wk	1/wk	1/wk	359
New York JFK	—	3/wk (fm 9th)	3/wk	359
Paris	3/wk	3/wk	3/wk	359
Perth	3/wk	3/wk	3/wk	787
Sydney	5/wk	9/wk	12/wk	359
Zurich	3/wk	4/wk	4/wk	359
Total	55/wk	76/wk	90/wk

The latest updated schedules including days of operation is available at this dedicated page on the Singapore Airlines website.

No new long-haul routes outside Asia will be restarting over the next three months (edit: New York JFK has now been announced), though again we can see some significant frequency increases, including plans to serve Melbourne and Sydney 12 times per week or more (almost twice daily).

Amsterdam will also become the second European route to pick up a daily passenger connection by December, only surpassed by London (12 times weekly).

Overall weekly passenger flight frequencies across all Singapore Airlines services are as follows:

• Oct 2020: 97 per week
• Nov 2020: 138 per week
• Dec 2020: 157 per week

That’s a significant ramp-up with over 60% more flights in December compared to October, mostly due to the significant increase in frequencies outlined above.

SilkAir Schedule

SilkAir is expanding its network to eight cities by December 2020, with the addition of Kathmandu in October and Malé in December, in addition to the Penang route in October we already mentioned.

Overall the airline will increase to 150 monthly passenger flights by December 2020, around 4.3% of its 3,500 monthly services flown in December 2019.

SilkAir will be running the following passenger route network between October and December 2020.

All other SilkAir routes not listed below are cancelled during this period.

SilkAir Routes (Oct – Dec 2020)
City	Month			Acft
	Oct	Nov	Dec
Cebu	2/wk	2/wk	2/wk	738
Chongqing	1/wk	1/wk	1/wk	738
Kathmandu	1/wk (fm 10th)	1/wk	1/wk	738
Kuala Lumpur	2/wk	2/wk	4/wk	738
Malé	—	—	2/wk	738
Medan	1/wk	2/wk	2/wk	738
Penang	2/wk (fm 25th)	2/wk	2/wk	738
Phnom Penh	2/wk	3/wk	3/wk	738
Total	11/wk	13/wk	17/wk

The latest updated schedules including days of operation is available at this dedicated page on the Singapore Airlines website.

SilkAir continues to operate passenger flights exclusively using its Boeing 737-800 aircraft, with Airbus A319s and A320s in storage.

This is the highest level of SilkAir passenger flight activity we’ve seen since the skeleton schedules of April and May 2020, though when you compare it to the Singapore Airlines graph above it’s clear to see that recovery progress is much slower for the regional division.

Full schedules

Full flight schedules for SIA and SilkAir during the October to December 2020 period are now available at the Singapore Airlines website.

These are regularly updated, so do check for the latest changes.

  SIA and SilkAir Oct – Dec Flight Schedules

What if your flight has been cancelled?

You may be protected by SIA’s latest travel waiver policy, in force for bookings through 31st December 2020, in which case you can:

• Apply for a full cash refund; or
• Receive a travel credit voucher including a bonus credit against a future booking

See our article here covering the latest travel waiver policy for details, or check the SIA website here.

January 2021 onwards

As with previous months, Singapore Airlines continues to load practically its full schedule from the 1st January 2021. It will then later announce which services will actually go ahead.

Do remember that these forward plans are subject to significant further cuts based on the COVID-19 situation closer to the time, so we expect a revised service operation list to be announced closer to the time.

Summary

Singapore Airlines and SilkAir have both plotted their busiest schedule in months towards the end of 2020, with November and December in particular bringing the group back to 15% of usual capacity levels.

Additional business and essential travel green lanes with countries like Japan will assist with demand for many of these flights, though the airline is likely anticipating even more border restrictions to be gradually relaxed as Singapore moves into ‘Phase 3’ of its COVID-19 recovery.

SilkAir’s reinstated Malé services are very interesting. With no repatriation necessary in either direction on this route and likely limited transit demand, the only way this could be successful is if a leisure travel ‘green lane’ is adopted.

No guarantees of course, but there have been wilder theories!

(Cover Photo: Colin Watts)