SIA, United Airlines expand codeshare agreement to 19 new destinations

SINGAPORE Airlines (SIA) and United Airlines have expanded their codeshare agreement to include 19 new destinations in the US and South-east Asia.

The codeshare flights are subject to regulatory approvals and will be progressively made available for sale through the airlines' respective booking channels, both parties said in a joint statement on Tuesday (Apr 26).

Under the new agreement, SIA customers will be able to connect on United’s flights out of Los Angeles to 10 new US codeshare destinations, namely Austin, Baltimore, Boise, Cleveland, Denver, Honolulu, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Reno and Sacramento.

Meanwhile, United customers will be able to connect to 9 new codeshare destinations with SIA – 7 of which are located in South-east Asia.

The 9 locations are Brunei capital Bandar Seri Begawan, Siem Reap (Cambodia), Kuala Lumpur and Penang in Malaysia, Denpasar (Bali), Jakarta and Surabaya in Indonesia, Perth in Australia and Male in the Maldives.

The announcement comes as Singapore restores many aspects of pre-Covid life in a major easing of pandemic curbs from Tuesday. After more than 2 years, the country has finally lowered its Disease Outbreak Response System Condition (Dorscon) level from Orange to Yellow.

The last remaining testing requirement for fully-vaccinated travellers - a pre-departure test within 2 days before arrival - will also be removed from Apr 26. Corporations are expected to benefit greater business travel - including meeting, incentive, conference and exhibition (Mice) events - and the return of more staff to workplaces.

Last week, SIA posted a 64 per cent increase in passengers carried in March 2022 at 893,000, up from 544,600 the month before. In its operating results, the flag carrier noted that its passenger capacity measured in available seat-kilometres reached 51 per cent of pre-Covid-19 levels. Furthermore, its passenger load factor improved by 15.4 percentage points to 54.5 per cent month on month in March 2022.

Shares of SIA closed 0.5 per cent or S$0.03 lower at S$5.50 on Tuesday.