Newstrack

Singapore Airlines eyes Delhi double daily by year-end

Chetan Kapoor - Mumbai

Foo Chai Woo General Manager India, Singapore Airlines

As passenger traffic from India continues to grow year on year, Star Alliance member, Singapore Airlines aspires to increase frequencies from India's capital city of Delhi. "Initially, there was what appeared to be a quiet period during March-April when we expected people to book. However, it has now picked up. Further, we have increased capacity from Delhi with nine weekly flights, and are looking at increasing it to a double daily by year-end, subject to government approvals," said Foo Chai Woo, general manager India, Singapore Airlines in an interaction with Express TravelWorld.

The carrier also offers 10 weekly flights from Bengaluru, 11 weekly flights from Chennai; and its overall Indian operations consists of 58 flights per week from eight cities. "Earlier we had night flights and with the additional frequencies we had the option to either continue having night flights or have a new window and begin morning flights. The day-time flights from Mumbai have worked out well and we are applying the same strategy on some other metros to provide better connectivity from Singapore to Australia, the Far East and the United States," he added.

With reference to Jet Airways and Air India's direct flights to Shanghai, Foo mentioned, "There will always be a segment that would prefer to fly via Changi with suitable connections as it doesn't take much time. We are a hub carrier and have thrived on passenger connections on other flights. Also, the market is growing, so there is demand for everyone as traffic between India and China continues to grow at 20 per cent."

The carrier continues to clock double digit growth but faced a slow down in March to the United States with IT companies delaying projects and thereby restricting the business travellers flying those routes. Nonetheless, it is optimistic yet cautious about the growing markets of India and China. "Our strategy for India is to continue increasing frequencies and offer our passengers choice and better connections as far as network development is concerned and we envisage having a triple daily from Mumbai in the long run, which is possible as we already have three dailies to Beijing and five to Shanghai."

As part of its expansion plans, the airline recently inducted and deployed its fourth super-jumbo, the A380 on the Tokyo Narita route from May 20 and will also temporarily operate an A380 on the Beijing route during the Beijing Olympics to balance the demand to be created by the Games in August this year. From the Indian market's perspective, Singapore Airlines has regarded Australia as an emerging market as Indian travellers - leisure, students, VFR, MICE and migrating - visit the country in large numbers. Lastly, it is monitoring Indian destinations of Pune, Varanasi, Gaya and Goa as potential stations in its Indian network.