Singapore Airlines reinstating non-stop Seattle flights

Good news for travellers who have been missing the non-stop link between Singapore and Seattle in the USA, with SIA planning to remove the Vancouver stop on this popular route and reinstate the 16-hour flights from June 2022, for the first time in over two years.

The service will offer one less weekly frequency than currently available (three per week, down from four), but cutting out the stop in Vancouver will shorten the journey time by two hours in each direction.

Meanwhile SIA will continue to serve Vancouver three times per week with its own dedicated flight, with service to the Canadian city loaded until the end of the summer season, having originally been planned as a short-term seasonal operation from December 2021 to February 2022.

The current schedule

Singapore – Seattle flights currently operate four times per week via Vancouver, using three-class Airbus A350 Long Haul aircraft.

Singapore Vancouver Seattle
Flight Schedule
(Now – 31 May 2022)

	SQ28 A350 Long Haul		Days
			M	T	W	T	F	S	S
SIN 09:15		YVR 08:30
YVR 09:40		SEA 10:30

All SQ27 and SQ29 flights from both Seattle and Vancouver back to Singapore are designated VTL services , for quarantine-free travel.

Seattle Vancouver Singapore
Flight Schedule
(Now – 31 May 2022)

	SQ27 SQ29 A350 Long Haul		Days
			M	T	W	T	F	S	S
SEA 12:00		YVR 12:45
YVR 14:15		SIN 22:05*

* Next day
= VTL

These four times weekly services continue to operate through to 31st May 2022, with slightly amended timings from late March for the northern summer season.

The new schedule

From 2nd June 2022 the SQ28/27 Seattle flights switch to non-stop operation, but reduce to three times weekly, with departures from both Singapore and Seattle on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

Singapore Seattle
Flight Schedule
(2 Jun – 29 Oct 2022)

	SQ28 A350 Long Haul		Days
			M	T	W	T	F	S	S
SIN 09:00		SEA 08:45

All three weekly SQ27 flights from Seattle to Singapore remain designated VTL services .

Seattle Singapore
Flight Schedule
(2 Jun – 29 Oct 2022)

	SQ27 A350 Long Haul		Days
			M	T	W	T	F	S	S
SEA 10:20		SIN 17:30*

* Next day
= VTL

The news also means that Singapore Airlines’ shortest passenger flight on the network, between Seattle and Vancouver will now revert to the more traditional Singapore – KL service.

Seattle route performance

Before the pandemic, Seattle was proving to be a big hit for Singapore Airlines with four times weekly flights recording up to 90% load factors.

Singapore Airlines
Seattle Route Performance

Month	Passenger Load Factor
	Singapore Seattle	Seattle Singapore
Sep ’19	93.4%	83.1%
Oct ’19	87.3%	90.2%
Nov ’19	88.1%	86.6%
Dec ’19	89.3%	90.3%
Jan ’20	95.3%	87.1%
Feb ’20	83.1%	65.0%
Mar ’20	64.8%	43.6%

Source: Bureau of Transportation Statistics

COVID-19 put a stop to that early success of course, as the figures reflect from February 2020 onwards, but the airline must have been buoyed by the demand it was seeing to and from the US “tech town”.

Seattle had already witnessed significant non-stop international flight expansion from other Asian carriers like ANA and Cathay Pacific in recent years, before the pandemic hit.

SIA was even scheduling a fifth weekly non-stop service to the city from March 2020, before the route had to be suspended.

The airline will no doubt be hoping for a similarly positive performance as it transitions back to being a non-stop service this summer.

Vancouver schedule

From 2nd June 2022 Vancouver flights are renumbered to SQ48/47 and also operate on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays in both directions, the same as the Seattle route despite being separate flights.

Singapore Vancouver
Flight Schedule
(2 Jun – 29 Oct 2022)

	SQ48 A350 Long Haul		Days
			M	T	W	T	F	S	S
SIN 07:00		YVR 06:45

All SQ47 flights from Vancouver to Singapore are designated VTL services .

Vancouver Singapore
Flight Schedule
(2 Jun – 29 Oct 2022)

	SQ47 A350 Long Haul		Days
			M	T	W	T