Singapore Airlines Fleet: March 2023

Singapore Airlines is finally taking delivery of wide-body passenger aircraft again this week, for the first time in seven months, with a brand new Airbus A350 and a brand new Boeing 787-10 touching down at Changi, ready to enter service in April.

That’s great news for the airline’s ability to continue expansion as travel demand rebounds post-pandemic, and we expect three more A350s and three more 787-10s to arrive in the coming months.

The carrier’s active passenger fleet now stands at over 120 aircraft, practically the same as pre-COVID, though that’s still around 30 aircraft short when you consider that SilkAir has now been fully merged into the mainline operation.

Fleet totals

Here are the Singapore Airlines passenger fleet totals at 31st March 2023.

	CAAS Database:	147
	Recently delivered: For disposal: Yet to enter service:	+1 -13 -1
	In Service:	134
	In maintenance / stored:	-10
	Active:	124

The official registered aircraft data in combination with confirmed retirement announcements and analysis of actual flight movements over the last few weeks allows us to determine the actual ‘in service’ fleet (available to the airline) of 134 planes at 31st March 2023, 124 of which were recently active.

That’s 12% more than this time last year, when around 110 passenger aircraft were active in the fleet.

  Click here to see the official CAAS list of registered aircraft in Singapore at February 2023.

SIA Passenger Fleet at 31st March 2023

The following 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 flights (‘Active’).

Type	Registered	In Service	Active
A350-900 LH	31	30	29
A350-900 MH	24	24	24
A350-900 ULR	7	7	7
A380-800	15	12	9
737-800	9	7	6
737-8 MAX	16	16	15
777-200	5	0	0
777-300ER	26	23	19
787-10	15	15	15
Total	148	134	124

All the airline’s remaining registered Boeing 777-200s will not be returning to the fleet, in addition to three older Airbus A380s, three Boeing 777-300ERs and two Boeing 737-800s.

These are therefore excluded from the ‘In Service’ column.

This reflects a future fleet of 134 aircraft, plus future deliveries of Airbus A350s, Boeing 737-8 MAXs, Boeing 787-10s and Boeing 777-9s still on order.

New deliveries have restarted

Singapore Airlines has suffered a four-month drought of new aircraft deliveries, picking up the keys to its most recent Boeing 737 MAX back in November 2022.

That comes despite a strong order book, but unfortunately also at a time of further Boeing 787 delivery postponements by regulators, which we touched on in our recent article summarising the mess that has been the Dreamliner’s design and production.

This has led SIA to postpone entry into service of several Boeing 787-10s that had been due to arrive in the fleet over the last year, while the carrier’s Boeing 777-9 deliveries now look set to be arriving a full five years late.

Luckily this week there are two brand new wide-body deliveries to report on, in the form of an Airbus A350 and (yes, at last!) a Boeing 787-10.

Singapore Airlines Airbus A350-900
This week’s delivery

Reg.	Variant	Delivered	Service Entry
9V-SJF	Long Haul	29 Mar 2023	Pending (Apr 2023)

9V-SJF arrived at Changi shortly after 1pm on 30th March 2023, having been formally delivered to the carrier in Toulouse the previous day.

The aircraft is a three-class long-haul variant of the type, and as with most new A350s arriving in the fleet we expect it to enter service in the coming days once the engineers here have ‘kicked the tyres’ a bit, and all the relevant safety equipment and literature has been put in place.

Only three more passenger Airbus A350s are due for delivery to Singapore Airlines, all of which will be the Long Haul variant and all of which should happen this year:

• 9V-SJG
• 9V-SJH
• 9V-SJI

After that, SIA will start taking delivery of seven Airbus A350 freighters from late 2025, which will replace the carrier’s ageing Boeing 747-400 freighters over in the cargo division.

Singapore Airlines Boeing 787-10
This week’s delivery

Reg.	Delivery	Service Entry
9V-SCS	31 Mar 2023	Pending (Apr 2023)

It’s been a long time since Singapore Airlines took delivery of a new Boeing 787-10 – in fact it has been over three years, with the last example arriving in November 2019.

Thankfully 9V-SCS is now in line for delivery, with its flight from Charleston to Changi (via Nagoya for refuelling) originally scheduled to touch down here at 11.30pm on 1st April 2023, but pushed back by a few hours, so it will now arrive at 3.30am on 2nd April 2023.

This is the first Boeing 787 delivery to Singapore Airlines for over 40 months.

As you may notice, it’s also an out-of-sequence delivery, with 9V-SCP, -SCQ and -SCR originally due to arrive first, but following months of storage for these jets it seem like -SCS was simply the ‘most ready’, and Singapore Airlines is no doubt tired of waiting for these planes, after numerous delays.

9V-SCP and -SCQ have both been on test flights recently, and will hopefully be delivered in the coming weeks.

One delivered Boeing 737-8 MAX remains elusive

Singapore Airlines took delivery of six new Boeing 737-8 MAX aircraft in 2022, and promptly put all these aircraft into revenue service… except one.

9V-MBL was delivered on 26th February 2022, then was repainted from SilkAir colours into the Star Alliance colour scheme (photo here) in April 2022, but for some reason has never been brought into service.

This is the first SIA narrow-body aircraft to receive the Star Alliance colours and it would be nice to see it in action, especially as its deployment could help accelerate the removal of the ex-SilkAir Boeing 737-800s, with their inferior cabin products.

It’s still a mystery why 9V-MBL remains parked.

The final Airbus A380 is still in refit

Only one of SIA’s future 12-strong fleet of Airbus A380s still needs to have the latest cabin products fitted before it re-enters service, and that’s 9V-SKP.

This one has been in the hangar since October 2022, and based on previous refit timescales we should see it enter the fleet as the final superjumbo returning post-COVID by around mid-2023.

The A380 is now being used extensively on the network, including to Hong Kong, London, Sydney and Shanghai.

Further expansion for the A380s in 2023 includes Melbourne, Delhi and a second daily Sydney service, though the Singapore – Frankfurt – New York route sadly downgrades to a Boeing 777-300ER this summer.

Fleet activity by registration

Here’s a breakdown of the SIA fleet of passenger aircraft based on recent revenue passenger or cargo-only flight activity, based on an analysis conducted on 31st March 2023.

Airbus A350s

All but two of the 31-strong Airbus A350-900 Long Haul fleet was active in March 2023, with 29 aircraft flying revenue services over the last two weeks.

9V-SML is in maintenance, while 9V-SJF has yet to enter service.

Aircraft	Location	Last flew	Days ago
9V-SMA	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SMB	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SMC	SIN	30 Mar 23	1
9V-SMD	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SME	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SMF	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SMG	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SMH	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SMI	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SMJ	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SMK	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SML	SIN	12 Mar 23	19
9V-SMM	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SMN	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SMO	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SMP	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SMQ	SIN	30 Mar 23	1
9V-SMR	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SMS	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SMT	SIN	30 Mar 23	1
9V-SMU	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SMV	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SMW	SIN	30 Mar 23	1
9V-SMY	SIN	29 Mar 23	2
9V-SMZ	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SJA	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SJB	SIN	30 Mar 23	1
9V-SJC	SIN	30 Mar 23	1
9V-SJD	SIN	30 Mar 23	1
9V-SJE	SIN	30 Mar 23	1
9V-SJF	SIN	To enter service

‘Last flew’ dates relate to the aircraft’s most recent revenue flight.

All 24 Airbus A350-900 Medium Haul aircraft were flying recently.

Aircraft	Location	Last flew	Days ago
9V-SHA	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SHB	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SHC	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SHD	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SHE	SIN	30 Mar 23	1
9V-SHF	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SHG	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SHH	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SHI	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SHJ	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SHK	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SHL	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SHM	SIN	25 Mar 23	6
9V-SHN	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SHO	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SHP	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SHQ	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SHR	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SHS	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SHT	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SHU	SIN	25 Mar 23	6
9V-SHV	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SHW	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SHY	SIN	31 Mar 23	0

‘Last flew’ dates relate to the aircraft’s most recent revenue flight.

All of the airline’s Airbus A350-900 ULR aircraft are in service, covering regular San Francisco, New York JFK and Newark flights.

Aircraft	Location	Last flew	Days ago
9V-SGA	SIN	28 Mar 23	3
9V-SGB	SIN	30 Mar 23	1
9V-SGC	SIN	30 Mar 23	1
9V-SGD	SIN	30 Mar 23	1
9V-SGE	SIN	29 Mar 23	2
9V-SGF	SIN	30 Mar 23	1
9V-SGG	SIN	31 Mar 23	0

‘Last flew’ dates relate to the aircraft’s most recent revenue flight.

Airbus A380s

A total of nine Airbus A380s are currently in regular service, with 9V-SKP the final superjumbo under refit, as mentioned above.

9V-SKN and 9V-SKT are already in the new configuration, but are undergoing maintenance at Changi.

Aircraft	Location	Last flew	Days ago
9V-SKF	SIN	24 Mar 20	1,102
9V-SKK	ASP	21 Mar 20	1,105
9V-SKL	ASP	27 Mar 20	1,099
9V-SKM	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SKN	SIN	17 Mar 23	14
9V-SKP	SIN	24 Mar 20	1,102
9V-SKQ	SIN	30 Mar 23	1
9V-SKR	SIN	30 Mar 23	1
9V-SKS	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SKT	SIN	17 Nov 22	134
9V-SKU	SIN	30 Mar 23	1
9V-SKV	SIN	30 Mar 23	1
9V-SKW	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SKY	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SKZ	SIN	31 Mar 23	0

‘Last flew’ dates relate to the aircraft’s most recent revenue flight.

Boeing 737-800s

7 out of the 9 Boeing 737-800s that moved across from SilkAir to Singapore Airlines remain in regular service with the mainline carrier, with 9V-MGA and -MGB now deemed surplus to requirements and set for disposal, as revealed in May 2022.

9V-MGC appears to be in maintenance, but as we recently noticed, with only two routes on the cards for these jets this summer there may be scope for further retirements earlier than the planned 2025 wind-down for this unpopular fleet.

Aircraft	Location	Last flew	Days ago
9V-MGA	SIN	5 May 22	330
9V-MGB	SIN	21 May 22	314
9V-MGC	SIN	17 Mar 23	14
9V-MGD	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-MGE	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-MGK	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-MGL	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-MGM	SIN	30 Mar 23	1
9V-MGN	SIN	28 Mar 23	3

‘Last flew’ dates relate to the aircraft’s most recent revenue flight.

SilkAir’s last passenger flight was on 6th May 2021, from Kathmandu to Singapore. Don’t miss our tribute to the regional subsidiary’s rich 29-year history.

Boeing 737-8 MAX

As mentioned earlier, 15 out of 16 SIA Boeing 737-8 MAX aircraft are now in regular service, with only 9V-MBL to join the fold in its Star Alliance livery.

Aircraft	Location	Last flew	Days ago
9V-MBA	SIN	30 Mar 23	1
9V-MBB	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-MBC	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-MBD	SIN	19 Mar 23	12
9V-MBE	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-MBF	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-MBG	SIN	30 Mar 23	1
9V-MBH	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-MBI	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-MBJ	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-MBK	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-MBL	SIN	To enter service
9V-MBM	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-MBN	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-MBO	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-MBP	SIN	31 Mar 23	0

‘Last flew’ dates relate to the aircraft’s most recent revenue flight.

9V-MBD might be in maintenance, given its 12-day break from service.

Boeing 777-200

Boeing 777-200s will not return to the SIA fleet, with the five aircraft still owned by the airline in storage at Alice Springs or Changi.

Aircraft	Location	Last flew	Days ago
9V-SRG	ASP	1 Feb 20	1,154
9V-SRH	ASP	23 Mar 20	1,103
9V-SRJ	ASP	7 Jun 20	1,027
9V-SRL	ASP	24 Mar 20	1,102
9V-SRP	SIN	24 Mar 20	1,102

‘Last flew’ dates relate to the aircraft’s most recent revenue flight.

Boeing 777-300ERs

19 of SIA’s 26 registered Boeing 777-300ERs were active over the last two weeks, and increase of two compared to our December 2022 update, no doubt thanks to continued Boeing 787 delivery delays.

The other 7 aircraft are stored at Changi (5) or Alice Springs (2), though as we already reported 9V-SWD, -SWE and -SWF will not rejoin the fleet, leaving only 4 to be activated again.

Aircraft	Location	Last flew	Days ago
9V-SWB	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SWD	SIN	19 Mar 20	1,107
9V-SWE	SIN	1 Feb 21	788
9V-SWF	SIN	28 Sep 20	914
9V-SWG	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SWH	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SWI	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SWJ	ASP	4 May 20	1,061
9V-SWK	ASP	1 Aug 21	607
9V-SWL	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SWM	SIN	24 Dec 21	462
9V-SWN	SIN	24 Dec 21	462
9V-SWO	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SWP	SIN	29 Mar 23	2
9V-SWQ	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SWR	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SWS	SIN	30 Mar 23	1
9V-SWT	SIN	30 Mar 23	1
9V-SWU	SIN	30 Mar 23	1
9V-SWV	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SWW	SIN	30 Mar 23	1
9V-SWY	SIN	30 Mar 23	1
9V-SWZ	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SNA	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SNB	SIN	21 Mar 23	10
9V-SNC	SIN	30 Mar 23	1

‘Last flew’ dates relate to the aircraft’s most recent revenue flight.

Boeing 787-10s

All of SIA’s 15 Boeing 787-10s are currently active.

Aircraft	Location	Last flew	Days ago
9V-SCA	SIN	30 Mar 23	1
9V-SCB	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SCC	SIN	29 Mar 23	2
9V-SCD	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SCE	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SCF	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SCG	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SCH	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SCI	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SCJ	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SCK	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SCL	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SCM	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SCN	SIN	31 Mar 23	0
9V-SCO	SIN	31 Mar 23	0

‘Last flew’ dates relate to the aircraft’s most recent revenue flight.

As mentioned above, 9V-SCS will be the newest addition in the days ahead.

Alice Springs storage

There are still 10 SIA group aircraft in storage at Alice Springs, as outlined in the following table.

SIA Group aircraft stored in Alice Springs
Airline	Aircraft	Total
	Airbus A380	2
	Boeing 777-200	4
	Boeing 777-300ER	2
	Airbus A320	2

Some of these (like the Boeing 777-300ER aircraft) should be returned to service, while some others (like the Boeing 777-200s) will eventually be sold.

The A380s will likely be scrapped in Alice Springs – there is simply no future for these aircraft except for their spare parts sadly.

Future orders

Here’s how the latest total SIA Group orders for fleet modernisation and replacement looks, after taking account of the recent delivery of Airbus A350 9V-SJF and the imminent delivery of Boeing 787-10 9V-SCS.

SIA Group Orders
(incl. via lessors)

Delivery of Boeing 777-9s, which will sport the airline’s latest Suites and Business Class products, has slipped to 2025 at the earliest, with 2026 looking like a more realistic prospect now that SIA has been issued its first line production slots.

New aircraft deliveries are back for SIA in 2023, with one A350 Long Haul and, perhaps more significantly, a Boeing 787-10 both winging their way to Changi to join the fleet and help the airline restore capacity post-COVID.

The arrival of a new Boeing 787-10, almost unbelievably, will be the first of its kind for the airline in over three years.

We expect at least a further three Airbus A350s and three Boeing 787-10s to arrive this year, further bolstering the airline’s ability to restore pre-COVID capacity, and even expand service to various markets.

Stay tuned for the next fleet update later in 2023.

(Cover Photo: Plane’s Portrait Aviation Media / Malcolm Lu)