Singapore Airlines restarting passenger flights to Beijing

With relaxations in store for its international borders in the coming months, China is slowly allowing more international flight connections to be restored, with Singapore Airlines now confirming that it is reinstating passenger service to Beijing next week.

The carrier has been operating cargo-only flights to and from the Chinese capital throughout the pandemic, and in late September 2022 it was allowed to upgrade one-way Beijing to Singapore services to carry passengers twice per week, using Airbus A350 Long Haul aircraft.

The opposite direction has been a different matter, however, with the route void of passenger services for nearly three years, despite Beijing allowing a limited number of international arrivals since July 2022.

Singapore – Beijing reinstated from 30th December

From 30th December 2022, Singapore Airlines will upgrade the outbound leg of its SQ802/807 Beijing flight to passenger service, operating fortnightly every other Friday.

Here’s how the (skeleton) schedule looks on this route.

Singapore Airlines
Singapore ⇄ Beijing Schedule
(30th December 2022 – 24th March 2023)

			Days
			M	T	W	T	F	S	S
	SQ802 A350 Long Haul						*
SIN 08:00		PEK 14:00
	SQ807 A350 Long Haul
PEK 16:35		SIN 23:10
	SQ807 A350 Long Haul
PEK 16:55		SIN 23:55

* Fortnightly (every other Friday)

SQ802 flights from Singapore to Beijing on Tuesdays (and on alternate Fridays) will operate as cargo-only services.

Prior to COVID-19, Singapore Airlines was operating 21 flights per week to and from Beijing, using four-class Airbus A380 and four-class Boeing 777-300ER aircraft, while Air China had a further 21 weekly services using Airbus A350-900 and Boeing 787-9 jets.

Air China will also return to the Singapore – Beijing route, with a weekly passenger service every Monday from 9th January 2023, using Airbus A330s.

KrisFlyer redemptions

Only a few waitlist Saver awards in the Economy Class cabin have been loaded on the Singapore – Beijing route for now, which isn’t surprising given the very limited frequencies approved so far, and the airline’s likely desire to capitalise on revenue demand first.

Here are the one-way KrisFlyer award rates for the Singapore – Beijing route.

KrisFlyer Redemption Singapore ⇄ Beijing
	Saver	Advantage
Economy	21,500	40,000
Premium Economy	34,500	n/a
Business	43,000	65,000

Beijing is the Group’s 13th mainland China destination

While mainland China remains closed to visitors and tourists, authorities there have been allowing airlines like SIA and Scoot to operate to major cities on the network again, typically once per week, with some recent relaxations to twice per week.

Indeed this addition of Beijing back into the fold represents the group’s 13th regular passenger destination in mainland China, with the following services already running.

SIA Group China Flights
(Dec 2022 – Mar 2023)

Airline / City / Flight Number		Aircraft	Days (ex-SIN)
	Beijing SQ802/807	A350 LH	Alternate Fri (0.5/wk)
	Chengdu SQ842/843	A350 LH	Tue (1/wk)
	Chongqing SQ814/815	787-10	Mon (1/wk)
	Shanghai SQ830/833	A380 787-10	Mon, Sat (2/wk)
	Shenzhen SQ846/847	A350 MH	Wed, Sun (2/wk)
	Xiamen SQ868/869	A350 MH	Thu (1/wk)
	Fuzhou TR174/175	A321neo	Mon (1/wk)
	Guangzhou TR100/101	787-8 787-9	Sun (1/wk)
	Hangzhou TR188/189	787-8 787-9	Mon (1/wk)
	Nanjing TR180/181	787-8 787-9	Thu, Sun (2/wk)
	Tianjin TR138/139	787-8 787-9	Tue, Wed (2/wk)
	Wuhan TR120/121	787-8 787-9	Thu (1/wk)
	Zhengzhou TR116/117	787-8 787-9 A321neo	Wed (1/wk)

When it comes to mainland China, only SIA passenger services to and from Guangzhou have yet to be reinstated, though Scoot is already offering service on this route.

Scoot was also flying to Changsha, Harbin, Jinan, Nanchang, Nanning, Ningbo, Shenyang, Wuxi, Xi’An, Haikou, Kunming and Qingdao prior to the pandemic, but has yet to reinstate these routes.

China is reopening

2023 should finally see China reopening to foreign visitors, as COVID-19 restrictions are now being relaxed with an apparent move from “Zero COVID” to “Living with COVID” in recent weeks, abandoning mandatory centralised quarantine, wide lockdowns and compulsory testing.

The country even scrapped its COVID-19 tracking app last week, seen by many analysts as the backbone of its pandemic response measures.

China is still not yet open for tourists, however, with only Chinese nationals and foreign nationals holding residence permits or certain types of visa permitted to enter.

China currently imposes an eight day quarantine for those eligible to travel, in a “5 + 3” arrangement (recently relaxed from “7 + 3”), with:

• 5 days of quarantine at a government-selected facility or hotel
• 3 days of quarantine at home or suitable accommodation

A negative PCR test within 48 hours of departure to China is required, plus a number of PCR tests during the hotel quarantine period.

However, just yesterday reports started to circulate that a significant relaxation to a possible “0 + 3” arrangement may be on the cards as early as January 2023, which would no doubt pave the way for tourist visits to China in due course.

This will probably start with visitors from and from Hong Kong, before expanding to a truly international reopening.

“I don’t think the mainland [China] government will relax everything in one go. Adopting ‘0+3’, scrapping the daily quota and [hotel] quarantine are more practical things that we hope can be achieved soon.”

Ben Chan, Hong Kong Legislative Council
22nd December 2022

Once those things happen, flight caps will no doubt be progressively relaxed and airlines like SIA and Scoot can truly ramp up towards pre-COVID frequencies to and from China next year.

Recently Hong Kong adopted a “0 + 3” arrangement of sorts for international travellers, which has relatively quickly now progressed to a more tourist-friendly “0 + 0” policy, with no movement restrictions.

Once those things happen in mainland China, flight caps will certainly be progressively relaxed and airlines like SIA and Scoot can truly ramp up towards pre-COVID frequencies to and from the country.

Which SIA routes are still missing?

Now that two-way Beijing passenger flights are back on the cards for SIA, here’s the latest rundown of its cities yet to be added to the list post-COVID (or not, as the case may be).

	City / Airport
Pending reinstatement (SIA route)	Guangzhou Moscow Sapporo (seasonal)
Pending reinstatement (former SilkAir route)	Bandung Mandalay (seasonal)
Transferred to Scoot (and still pending reinstatement)	Balikpapan (restart planned 27th Jan 2023) Semarang
Discontinued since COVID-19 (no planned reinstatement)	Brussels Canberra Dusseldorf Hiroshima Koh Samui Stockholm Wellington

These passenger services from Singapore to Beijing are simply a reassignment of cargo-only flights once every two weeks, but they are a positive sign that there’s a move towards China finally reopening to visitors in 2023.

Hong Kong has already relaxed many of its restrictions, though testing is still a chore for visitors and returning residents, but fundamentally it’s now only China and North Korea that are still closed to the outside world.

It looks like 2023 should finally bring an end to that, for China at least, and SIA will no doubt be ready to ramp-up towards pre-COVID schedules to and from the country during the coming year.

(Cover Photo: Skycolors / Shutterstock)