Last month Singapore Airlines announced a new service to London, with the carrier flying non-stop between Changi and the UK capital’s second airport Gatwick for the first time, using Airbus A350s five days per week from June 2024.
Securing takeoff and landing slots at congested European airports is no easy feat though, and the Gatwick news came after SIA had already been unsuccessful in securing an additional daily flight to and from the more popular Heathrow Airport.
SIA wanted daily Gatwick flights
A report from Gatwick’s slot regulator Airport Coordination Limited (ACL) shows that Singapore Airlines didn’t strike 100% lucky with its Gatwick route either, having originally applied to operate daily flights at the airport.
In the end, only 300 of the carrier’s requested 420 slots for the northern summer 2024 season were granted, sufficient for a five times weekly service.
Unfortunately no landing or takeoff slots were granted to SIA on Wednesdays or Thursdays at Gatwick, which in turn means SIA does not operate a flight out of Changi to the secondary London airport on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
Here’s how Singapore Airlines’ schedule for the new route looks.
Singapore London Gatwick
21 Jun 2024 – 26 Oct 2024
| Days | |||||||||
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S | |||
 |
SQ312 A350 LH |
||||||||
| SIN 23:55 |
LGW 06:25* |
||||||||
| Duration: 13:30 | |||||||||
* Next day
Slot not allocated
London Gatwick Singapore
22 Jun 2024 – 26 Oct 2024
| Days | |||||||||
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S | |||
|
SQ309 A350 LH |
||||||||
| LGW 10:15 |
SIN 06:20* |
||||||||
| Duration: 13:05 | |||||||||
* Next day
Slot not allocated
Had all 420 slots been approved at Gatwick, these flights would have represented a fifth daily London option for the carrier’s customers, but overall frequencies including Heathrow flights will actually increase from 28 per week to 33 per week.
Note also how Singapore Airlines isn’t making full use of its Gatwick approval, with slots granted from 31st March 2024, but the route only actually kicking off from mid-June 2024.
Daily flights are key to offering optimal connectivity for hub-and-spoke carriers like Singapore Airlines.
Currently, around 60% of SIA’s passengers on its London Heathrow flights aren’t travelling to or from Singapore, but instead merely transit through the carrier’s Changi hub, with their top five ‘actual’ destinations or origin points being Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Bali and Perth, according to Cirium data.
This will no doubt be a similar pattern for Gatwick flights, and a daily option would certainly have helped here, as it would have done for KrisFlyer award space.
Gatwick is Europe’s busiest single runway airport
Like Heathrow Airport, Gatwick operates at maximum capacity but with only a single runway, limiting hourly takeoffs and landings to 55, with even tighter limits at night due to noise restrictions.
Nonetheless, Gatwick does a good job of moving aeroplanes.
It’s the busiest single runway airport in Europe, and handled 24,600 commercial takeoffs and landings in September 2023, 88% of the traffic that Changi managed in the same month with two runways!
The timings weren’t perfect
Another issue the slots regulator has to contend with is juggling the various applications into five-minute slot windows throughout the day, to ensure that both runway capacity and terminal capacity is not exceeded.
That means airlines that get their slots approved don’t always receive the exact timings they want, and SIA was no exception at Gatwick.
ACL’s report shows that the carrier was awarded 40% of its slots at exactly the requested time, and a further 10% with only a 5-minute difference from the requested time.
However, for the remaining 50% of the slots there was a bigger difference.
30% of the allocated slots were 15-25 minutes different to the requested time, while the remaining 20% were 30-55 minutes off.
What about the winter season?
Singapore Airlines has already programmed five times weekly London Gatwick flights for the northern winter 2024 / 2025 season, which runs from late October 2024 to late March 2025.
As an incumbent carrier at Gatwick by then, SIA is entitled to these five times weekly slots without making a new application, but if the carrier still wants to increase to daily services during that season, it will once again need to apply to do so, which may or may not be successful.
Here’s how the current SIA winter schedule on this route looks, from late October 2024.
Singapore London Gatwick
27 Oct 2024 – 28 Mar 2025
| Days | |||||||||
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S | |||
|
SQ312 A350 LH |
||||||||
| SIN 23:55 |
LGW 06:25* |
||||||||
| Duration: 14:30 | |||||||||
* Next day
Possible future request slots
London Gatwick Singapore
27 Oct 2024 – 28 Mar 2025
| Days | |||||||||
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S | |||
|
SQ309 A350 LH |
||||||||
| LGW 09:20 |
SIN 06:15* |
||||||||
| Duration: 12:55 | |||||||||
* Next day
Possible future request slots
The North Terminal will be relatively quiet
Another element of slot approval, apart from runway capacity, is terminal passenger capacity.
As Singapore Airlines confirmed to us last month, these new Gatwick flights will operate to and from the North Terminal.
The goods news is ACL data shows that Singapore Airlines flights will arrive into the North Terminal during a period where it runs at around 65% of maximum capacity (6am – 6.30am), while departure is in an even quieter window when the terminal is due to be only at around 50% capacity (10am – 10.30am).
That should bode well for immigration clearance times for arriving Singapore Airlines passengers, and for security, terminal and lounge congestion for those departing.
Singapore Airlines has still not confirmed which lounge it will be directing eligible passengers to at Gatwick, such as Business Class passengers, PPS Club and KrisFlyer Elite Gold members, with the following looking like the most likely options for the airline:
There’s more good news at Gatwick too.
The North Terminal is currently undergoing a multi-million pound renovation that will see its departure lounge modernised, including “contemporary seating” with power outlets for personal device charging and differentiated “mood zones” for relaxing, working or shopping.
Work is scheduled to be completed in early 2024, which will hopefully make the experience more “Changi-like” for SIA’s discerning customers, come June 2024.
KrisFlyer awards (with lower taxes)
These are the KrisFlyer miles needed for the Singapore – London Gatwick route.
| KrisFlyer Redemption (one-way) Singapore ⇄ London |
||
| Saver | Advantage | |
| Economy | 42,000 | 70,000 |
| Premium Economy | 71,000 | n/a |
| Business | 103,500 | 123,000 |
As we highlighted last month, award space on this new route is quite good so far, with some dates featuring up to six Saver redemptions in the Business Class cabin.
One benefit of departing from Gatwick rather than Heathrow on an KrisFlyer award ticket is that lower taxes and fees are in force, as we highlighted last month.
While there’s still the very high Air Passenger Duty (APD) payable on award tickets departing from the United Kingdom to contend with out of Gatwick, taxes and fees are GBP 35.24 (around S$60) less than from Heathrow.
That’s not because APD is less (it’s the same), but because Gatwick’s Passenger Service Charge is only GBP 20.57, while Heathrow’s is a steep GBP 55.81.
SIA KrisFlyer Award Taxes & Fees
Business Class, ex-UK
| Airport | APD | PSC | Total |
| London Heathrow | GBP 202 | GBP 55.81 | GBP 257.81 (~S$431) |
| London Gatwick |
GBP 202 | GBP 20.57 | GBP 222.57 (~S$373) |
That makes Gatwick the cheapest UK airport to redeem KrisFlyer miles from, though let’s face it – APD still stings!
Connectivity at Gatwick
Gatwick airport is well connected to central London, with regular trains running up to 15 times per hour from an integrated rail station at the South Terminal to a variety of stations including London Victoria, London Bridge, London Blackfriars, London St Pancras, City Thameslink and Farringdon stations.
Most services take less than 35 minutes, with the Gatwick Express clocking the fastest time at 31 minutes.
Here’s how it compares to other London airports, for those taking the train into the city.
The airport’s integrated rail station at the South Terminal (a five-minute monorail ride from the North Terminal SIA will use) has recently had a GBP 250 million revamp.
In terms of flight connections, Gatwick unfortunately offers little in the way of Star Alliance connectivity for Singapore Airlines flights seeking single-itinerary onward flights across Europe.
However, as an airport that caters predominantly to leisure traffic, there are a plethora of low-cost and budget carriers like easyJet serving a wide range of destinations across Europe, for those willing to self-connect.
British Airways also operates a secondary hub at Gatwick, primarily serving European leisure destinations like Bordeaux, Marrakesh, Salzburg and Santorini, which can be great value redemptions if you have Avios points to spend.
SIA’s Europe network
Despite not being able to launch as many flights to London Gatwick as it was hoping to this year, Singapore Airlines will operate its highest ever flight frequencies to and from Europe.
From late June 2024, 14 airports will be served by 111 flights from Changi Airport each week, with a combined capacity for 33,046 passengers in each direction.
Singapore Airlines Europe destinations
Summer 2024
| Destination | Frequency |
| Amsterdam | 7/wk |
| Barcelona | 5/wk |
| Brussels | 4/wk (from April) |
| Copenhagen | 7/wk |
| Frankfurt | 14/wk |
| Istanbul | 4/wk |
| London Gatwick | 5/wk (from June) |
| London Heathrow | 28/wk |
| Manchester | 5/wk |
| Milan | 7/wk |
| Munich | 7/wk |
| Paris | 14/wk |
| Rome | 4/wk |
| Zurich | 7/wk |
That compares to 103 flights with a combined 33,817 seats prior to the pandemic, based on June 2019 schedules.
That’s a 7% increase in flights and almost a full recovery in passenger capacity, impressive when you consider that the airline permanently axed two European routes – Dusseldorf and Stockholm – during COVID-19.
Summary
Last month Singapore Airlines announced a new five times weekly non-stop route to and from London Gatwick Airport, 47km south of the UK capital, but as we mentioned at the time this was something of a ‘Plan B’ for the carrier, having failed to secure additional landing slots at the more popular Heathrow Airport.
Now we know that the carrier’s application for flights at Gatwick didn’t quite work out as hoped for either, with the slots regulator approving only a five times weekly service, 70% of the daily service SIA was asking for.
Hopefully Singapore Airlines will be able to secure a daily service at Gatwick, or more slots at Heathrow, in future scheduling seasons.
(Cover Photo: Shutterstock)
Did SQ310 get renamed to SQ312? SQ website reflects the flight to LGW as SQ312, while the returning flight is still SQ309.