Singapore Airlines will maintain the same flight frequencies but the A380 will be replaced by 777 aircraft. Photo: Bloomberg
Singapore Airlines will reduce its A380 services to Sydney and Melbourne, leading to a further cut in capacity on the Australia-Singapore route following recent changes to Qantas Airways's schedule.
Industry publication Airline Route said Singapore Airlines was gradually reducing A380 services to Australia as a result of 'aircraft redeployment'. The airline will introduce A380s on its Indian services from the end of May after that country's aviation regulator lifted a long-standing ban on the super-jumbo.
From May 30, it will offer one daily A380 return flight from Sydney to Singapore rather than two and from October 26, the daily return A380 service from Melbourne to Singapore will be cancelled.
Singapore Airlines will maintain the same flight frequencies but the A380 will be replaced by 777 aircraft which offer around 200 fewer seats than the super-jumbo. Singapore Airlines offers four return flights a day from Singapore to Sydney and to Melbourne.
Qantas in February announced it would cancel flights from Perth to Singapore and reduce the size of aircraft on its Sydney-Singapore and Brisbane-Singapore routes to A330s from larger 747s.
The Australia-Singapore route, served by Singapore Airlines, Qantas and their budget offshoots Jetstar, Scoot and Tigerair, has suffered from overcapacity over the last year leading to cheap fares.
Singapore Airlines is offering economy-class return fares from Sydney to Singapore from $746, while Qantas has fares of $699 on offer on the route.
The New Zealand-Singapore direct market is far less competitive. The Singapore Competition Commission has approved a proposed alliance between Singapore Airlines and Air New Zealand on the route.
The regulator found the alliance, which is meant to help the carriers better compete against the Qantas/Emirates partnership, could raise competition concerns but those would be offset by net economic benefits to Singapore.
Jetstar, the only competition to Singapore Airlines on the Auckland-Singapore route, announced it would abandon the route from July after the Singapore Airlines/Air NZ alliance was proposed in January.
Air NZ hasn't been flying the Auckland-Singapore route but will reintroduce services as part of the alliance.
The Singapore Airlines/Air NZ alliance is still subject to approval from New Zealand's Ministry of Transport.
Tourism New Zealand has argued in favour of the alliance despite Jetstar's decision to exit the Auckland-Singapore route, saying the overall capacity increase as a result of the alliance will have a significant net benefit to New Zealand.
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