Singapore Airlines is bringing another popular pre-COVID destination back to its route network, with the airline confirming the return of non-stop Singapore – Sapporo services from December 2024, allowing customers to fly directly to Hokkaido for the peak ski season next year.
These seasonal flights were last served on 6th January 2020, using the airline’s now-retired Airbus A330 aircraft, but they have not made a return in subsequent years due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
That’s left many travellers having to make connections in other Japanese cities like Tokyo and Fukuoka in order to reach Sapporo from Singapore with a full-service carrier, since travel restrictions were lifted.
The good news is SIA’s non-stop link will be reinstated, this time using 303-seat two-class Airbus A350 Medium Haul jets, from 1st December 2024 until 31st January 2025.
The schedule
Singapore Airlines is restarting non-stop flights to Sapporo’s New Chitose Airport five times per week from December 2024, in a seasonal schedule that usually runs for around five weeks until early January.
At the time of writing the end date for the service is not known, since the limit date for the GDS schedule is currently 17th December 2024, but we expect the service will run until at least the first week in January 2025.
Update: Singapore Airlines has confirmed to Mainly Miles that this service will operate until 31st January 2025 (SQ661).
That would be very much in common with previous short-term operation of this service pre-COVID, with the route most recently operating for five weeks, from 30th November 2019 to 6th January 2020.
We have reached out to Singapore Airlines to confirm the exact end date for these flights and will update the article with their response. Updated.
Here’s how the schedule looks.
Singapore Sapporo
1 Dec 2024 – 30 January 2025
| Days | |||||||||
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S | |||
 |
SQ660 A350 MH |
||||||||
| SIN 23:00 |
CTS 07:30* |
||||||||
| Duration: 07:30 | |||||||||
* Next day
You’ll be able to head up to Sapporo every evening during on this service at 11pm, except on Tuesdays and Fridays, easily allowing you to travel after a full day of work, with a morning arrival at 7.30am the following day.
Sadly that’s probably a bit early to expect your hotel room to be ready on arrival, even after arrival formalities and the onward journey of 30 to 90 minutes to most of the ski resorts. Nonetheless, the 7 hour 30 minute flight time should be sufficient for some sleep on board, especially in Business Class.
SQ660 services will operate from Changi Airport Terminal 2, with SIA shortly due to announce that it is in fact shifting all of its Japan-bound services to T2 in Singapore, effective from the morning of 31st January 2024.
Sapporo Singapore
2 Dec 2024 – 31 January 2025
| Days | |||||||||
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S | |||
|
SQ661 A350 MH |
||||||||
| CTS 08:55 |
SIN 16:40 |
||||||||
| Duration: 08:45 | |||||||||
In the return direction, a relatively early morning departure just before 9am will see you back into Changi at around 4.40pm the same afternoon, after a significantly longer (but still non-stop) 8 hour 45 minute flight, against the strong winter headwinds on Japan – Singapore routes.
This service will not operate on Wednesdays or Saturdays.
During previous operating seasons in 2018/19 and 2019/20, Singapore Airlines was flying daily to and from Sapporo with the 285-seat A330, but this new service reinstatement five times per week with the A350 MH jets will see only around 75% of previous seat capacity offered.
On the plus side, Business Class capacity is almost identical (95% of pre-COVID), thanks to the A350 MH’s 40-seat cabin compared to the A330’s smaller 30-seat cabin, even with the frequency reduction accounted for.
The passenger experience is also significantly better on the A350s, with direct aisle flat-bed seats in Business Class and free Wi-Fi for all.
The 2009 Regional Business Class seats previously operating on this route bowed out of the fleet in October 2020.
Award rates and fares
Here are the one-way redemption rates you’ll pay by cabin class on SIA’s Singapore – Japan routes, in either direction, using the KrisFlyer program for a full flight redemption.
This includes the upcoming Sapporo flights from December 2024.
| KrisFlyer Redemption Singapore ⇄ Japan |
||
| Saver | Advantage | |
| Economy | 27,000 | 45,000 |
| Premium Economy | 37,500 | n/a |
| Business | 52,000 | 70,000 |
| First / Suites | 77,000 | 120,000 |
Taxes and fees of S$65.20 per person are payable on top of these miles rates in the SIN-CTS direction, or JPY 3,610 (~S$34) in the CTS-SIN direction.
Despite GDS loading schedules a year in advance, Singapore Airlines only offers bookings on its flights 355 days before departure, so at the time of writing only the first three SIN-CTS flights and the first two CTS-SIN flights on this route are bookable.
The good news is that this situation will progressively resolve itself over the next few weeks, as the airline loads up fresh award space on these flights at 8am Singapore Time each morning.
For example, jump online at 8am tomorrow morning – 16th December 2023 – to snag an award on the SQ660 (SIN-CTS) or SQ661 (CTS-SIN) departing on 5th December 2024, and so on.
This can be a good way to snap up a pair of Saver Business Class awards on these flights right from the outset, but sadly it’s not guaranteed.
Interestingly at the time of writing, Singapore Airlines has not yet loaded any cash fares on these first few flights, so keep an eye out for those in the coming days, since most fare codes are already loaded into GDS, with the exception of some cheaper Economy Class ones.
Scoot continues to serve Hokkaido
While Singapore Airlines has not been flying to and from Hokkaido since early 2020, that’s not the case for budget subsidiary Scoot, with the carrier flying four times weekly year-round to Sapporo via Taipei using Boeing 787-8s.
Services operate on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays.
These were supplemented by some non-stop flights between November 2022 and February 2023, but they are not running this winter and it seems unlikely these will return next winter either, given that SIA is once again picking up the baton on this route.
Summary
Those with a love for Hokkaido ski trips will no doubt be very happy at the news that non-stop Singapore – Sapporo flights are making a comeback, with SIA restarting this popular seasonal link from 1st December 2024.
Flights will operate five times weekly using Airbus A350 Medium Haul aircraft, including 40 of the 2018 Regional Business Class seats in a 1-2-1 configuration.
Award space is already being loaded for the first few flights, and if you make your searches at 8am each day over the next few weeks you’ll see subsequent space coming up progressively through to the end date of this route.
At the current time we do not have a confirmed final operating date for this seasonal service, though we have reached out to Singapore Airlines to clarify this point and will update this article appropriately. For now – expect it to run until at least the first week of January 2025.
Singapore Airlines has confirmed that this service will operate until 31st January 2025.
(Cover Photo: Alvin Man / Onemoreweektogo)
Hey Andrew, these would still be considered as Chartered Flights and can’t be redeemed with miles, correct..?
Cheers!
Nope these are regular scheduled flights. Redeem away 👍
Woot! 🥳🥳
If Singapore Airlines is soon to announce its plans to transfer its Japan-bound flights from T3 to T2 from 31 January 2024, could this be to relieve congestion and minimize the use of T1 gates during rush hours? I wonder how the SQ 012 service to Los Angeles will be affected since the flight has a brief stopover in Tokyo (Narita) (it could also possibly move to T2 as well). Apart from Japan services, it could also transfer more flights like those bound for the west coast of the United States from T3 to T2 as well (maybe specifically Seattle and Los Angeles).
He even included screenshots of the award space and you actually still asked 😂
Timings bad they should fly daytime to Sapporo overnight back
And leave the aircraft idling at Sapporo? Doesn’t make sense.
I wonder what made Singapore Airlines shift its Japan services from T3 to T2. Usually, the airline has T2 to cater to flights within Southeast Asia.
I wonder what made Singapore Airlines decide to transfer its Japan-bound services from T3 to T2, especially T3 caters to long-haul flights and T2 caters to flights within Southeast Asia.
Hi andrew I’m getting the “no flights available” screen while searching for first / business class redemptions for most of Dec on the CTS-SG route. I noticed on other routes they will minimally return a range (5 days worth) of days with them listed as “not available / waitlist / 70000miles”.
I tried toggling to economy tickets and it shows up to +355 days worth of available tickets.
Does this mean SQ has not opened up most redemption for business and first in later Dec ? Any inputs appreciated ! Thanks in advance !
So far they have only loaded a few Saver Business awards as far as I have seen, and for the rest some limited Advantage space in the CTS-SIN direction. Keep checking as they do often add more later.
Do you have any news if SQ will be having these non-stop flights for Dec 2025?