Back in August last year, Singapore Airlines announced a raft of service increases across its network for the northern summer 2024 season, which runs from late March through to late October, including a return to pre-pandemic capacity levels on at least 11 routes.
The full breakdown was provided here, but as always with advance announcements as comprehensive as this, and plans always tagged as “subject to regulatory approvals”, they rarely end up being fully accurate, and this one was no exception.
Hikes to the carrier’s Hong Kong schedule to six times daily, for example, kicked in four months earlier than SIA stated, while on the other hand a third daily Beijing flight ended up being postponed by over three months.
One part of the announcement that specifically piqued our interest was the carrier’s plans for its Dubai route.
Why? Because SIA was actually proposing a very significant 57% increase in capacity on this service, making it the only city on the list that would exceed pre-COVID capacity, following the planned frequency boost.
“From 31 March 2024, SIA will mount a new four-times weekly service between Singapore and Dubai (SQ496 and SQ497) with the A350-900 medium-haul aircraft.
Singapore Airlines
“This will bring services between the two cities from seven-times weekly to 11-times weekly, exceeding the pre-pandemic levels.”
August 2023
Here’s how the additional four times weekly service was proposed.
These additional timings looked designed to capture a range of additional connections into Singapore for SQ496, from the likes of Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand, a raft of which touch down at Changi between around 9pm and midnight.
In the opposite direction, SQ497 would connect at Changi with SIA’s well-known peak swathe of evening departures going wheels-up from around 10pm each night, especially to Australia, New Zealand and Japan.
Alas the new Dubai flights were never loaded for sale, and by January this year the actual frequency increase had been programmed only from 3rd August 2024, four months later than planned.
While the additional flights SQ496/497 were loaded in the Global Distribution System (GDS) at the time, they were still not available for reservation.
Dubai won’t see an SIA service increase
With these additional flights now removed from GDS completely for the full published schedule on this route through to April 2025, we queried the status of these new SQ496/497 flights with SIA, who confirmed to us that the increase will now not be going ahead.
“Singapore Airlines (SIA) will continue to operate a daily service between Singapore and Dubai (SQ494 and SQ495).
SIA spokesperson
“Due to operational reasons, SIA will not operate flights SQ496 (Singapore to Dubai) and SQ497 (Dubai to Singapore) as previously planned.”
As such SIA will be retaining the following daily schedule on its Dubai route for at least the rest of the summer 2024 season.
Singapore Dubai
Now – 26 Oct 2024
| Days | |||||||||
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S | |||
 |
SQ494 A350 MH |
||||||||
| SIN 15:10 |
DXB 18:25 |
||||||||
| Duration: 07:15 | |||||||||
|
SQ495 A350 MH |
||||||||
| DXB 19:50 |
SIN 07:30* |
||||||||
| Duration: 07:40 | |||||||||
* Next day
A similar schedule with slightly different timings is loaded for the northern winter 2024/25 season at this stage, as follows.
Singapore Dubai
27 Oct 2024 – 29 Mar 2025
| Days | |||||||||
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S | |||
|
SQ494 A350 MH |
||||||||
| SIN 15:05 |
DXB 18:45 |
||||||||
| Duration: 07:40 | |||||||||
|
SQ495 A350 MH |
||||||||
| DXB 20:00 |
SIN 07:15* |
||||||||
| Duration: 07:15 | |||||||||
* Next day
Prior to the pandemic, Singapore Airlines used its four-class Boeing 777-300ERs on daily Dubai flights, which also offered a First Class and Premium Economy cabin option.
However, since the route’s reinstatement two-class Airbus A350 Medium Haul aircraft have been deployed.
Interestingly that means the route already boasts 15% more seat capacity than it did before COVID-19, though admittedly the increase is only for Economy Class (+43%), Business Class has actually seen a drop of 17%.
Another downside of the A350 Medium Haul aircraft now used on this route is that these feature the SITA OnAir (GX Aviation) Wi-Fi system, which does offer faster connection speeds, but isn’t approved for use over India, which means for a significant portion of the cruise, these Singapore – Dubai flights suffer from no connection.
Here’s a reminder of the KrisFlyer miles needed to redeem these SIA Singapore – Dubai flights.
| KrisFlyer Redemption (one-way) Singapore ⇄ Dubai |
||
| Saver | Advantage | |
| Economy | 29,000 | 63,500 |
| Business | 56,500 | 103,500 |
Dubai is included in this month’s Spontaneous Escapes deal for travel in May 2024, in Economy Class, with a 30% discount meaning awards start at 20,300 miles each way.
The Singapore – Dubai route is also served by Emirates three times per day (twice with the A380 and once with the 777-300ER), a schedule that’s increasing to four times daily from next month, with the introduction of a flight that also operates a daily “fifth freedom” extension from Singapore to Phnom Penh.
Slots seem to have been the issue
The “operational reasons” preventing these additional Dubai flights don’t seem to have stemmed from a shortage of aircraft or crew.
In fact the stumbling block appears to have been an inability to obtain appropriate takeoff and landing slots at Dubai Airport during the current northern summer season.
As revealed by Dubai’s slots regulator Airport Coordination Limited (ACL) in late November last year, Singapore Airlines applied for the additional 240 takeoff and landing slots it required to operate this additional timing during the northern summer 2024 season.
These were in addition to the 420 slots it already held for its existing daily SQ494/495 service.
The additional slots were all approved, but unfortunately the timings SIA wanted (a 4.30am arrival in Dubai followed by a 9am departure on these four days each week) were not available.
In fact, the actual slot timings allocated to SIA for these additional flights were at least 2 hours different to the ones they wanted.
As we mentioned earlier, since SIA is a hub-and-spoke carrier the timings for this service at the Singapore end were clearly designed to capture the airline’s ‘connection banks’ for those travelling from Dubai to destinations elsewhere in Asia and the South West Pacific region, and vice-versa.
It seems likely that the significant timing offset allocated by the slots regulator in Dubai pushed this service so far outside these connection banks that it simply wasn’t feasible to proceed with whatever slots the carrier was actually given.
SIA’s Gatwick route also suffered from slot issues
Dubai isn’t the only airport where SIA faces slot constraint challenges following the post-pandemic travel rebound.
As we reported in January this year, Singapore Airlines applied to operate daily Airbus A350 Long Haul flights at London’s second airport Gatwick, having already been unsuccessful in gaining a fifth daily flight at Heathrow, for the current 2024 summer season.
However, only five out of seven weekly flights were approved, but at least that service can commence from mid June, with slot times all allocated within an hour of those the airline requested.
Summary
Singapore Airlines was keen to increase its flight frequencies to and from Dubai by a significant 57% this year, opening up many new connections through its Changi hub with a departure in the early hours of the morning, and a new evening return option.
Unfortunately while slots for these additional four times weekly flights were approved, the timings were way off what SIA was looking for, a situation that appears to have sealed SQ496/497’s fate for the foreseeable future.
In the meantime SIA will continue to offer its regular daily SQ494/495 flights to and from Dubai, but it will be June before we see the initial northern winter 2024/25 slot allocation for the airport, so until then we won’t know if the carrier has once again applied for these additional flights from late October 2024.
(Cover Photo: Shutterstock)