SIA to add flights to Japan from Oct 30

SINGAPORE Airlines (SIA) Group will ramp up its flights to Japan from Oct 30, even as the country has said it will abolish a slew of Covid border controls from next Tuesday (Oct 11).

In a statement on Monday, the group said that its flagship carrier SIA will, from Oct 30, mount an additional daily service to Tokyo’s Haneda Airport – SQ636 – on top of the existing daily SQ634 service to Haneda, and daily SQ638 service to Tokyo’s Narita Airport.

Oct 30 is also the day SIA will reinstate its Singapore to Osaka service, SQ618, bringing services between the two cities to twice daily.

Scoot, the group’s low-cost airline, will increase its service frequencies to these Japanese cities from Oct 30 to daily as well, from four times weekly to Tokyo (Narita) via Taipei and five times weekly to Osaka. Scoot is already operating daily flights from Singapore to Narita.

The announcement came as JoAnn Tan, SIA’s senior vice-president for marketing planning, said the group intends to be “nimble” in adjusting its services in response to the demand for air travel.

Pointing out that the group is seeing strong demand for air travel “towards the year-end holiday season”, she added: “Many customers are especially keen on destinations that have remained largely closed over the last few years.” 

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SIA Group on Monday also announced that it will increase service frequencies to Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan and mainland China to meet the buoyant demand, particularly towards the year-end holiday season and in the first three months of 2023.

For China, this means reinstating a weekly Scoot service to Hangzhou from Oct 3; a weekly SIA service to Chengdu from Oct 11; a weekly Scoot service to Zhengzhou from Oct 12; and a weekly Scoot service to Wuhan from Oct 13.

As for Hong Kong, it aims to move SIA’s twice daily services to operate three times daily – subject to regulatory approvals – while moving Scoot’s four-times weekly services to daily from Oct 30.

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For Taiwan, it plans to reinstate SQ876 as a four times weekly service to Taipei from Oct 31, on top of the current three times weekly SQ878 service to the same city.

For South Korea, it intends to add a new daily SIA service to Seoul from Oct 30. This will bring the airline’s operations to the South Korean capital to thrice daily.

Meanwhile, Scoot will on Oct 30 reinstate TR896 as a five times a week service among Singapore, Taipei and Seoul, and increase the frequency of flights to Jeju to five times weekly from Nov 5, up from thrice weekly currently.

With the changes, SIA Group’s passenger network will cover 110 destinations in 36 countries and territories from Nov 1 onwards, it said, pointing out that it will continue to closely monitor the demand for air travel and adjust its services accordingly.

Shares of SIA closed down 0.8 per cent or S$0.04 at S$5.06 on Monday.