Messing around with MEL

[SQ228]

An interesting article from today's Melbourne Age newspaper...

http://www.theage.com.au/travel/blog...326-1vtfz.html

Yes, I love how SQs marketing and PR department "are absolutely delighted for Melbourne to have the honour of bidding farewell to the Queen of the Skies".

No doubt all the delayed and inconvenienced passengers were overjoyed to share in such an "honour".

Wait, hold on, hasn't that honour been reassigned to Hong Kong? Ah well, at least MEL had the honour of keeping all those old broken seats warm in the meantime.

[MLflyer]

Singapore Airlines also plans to ''operate as many A380s as we can'' to Sydney and Melbourne. It operates two A380s to Sydney - one of which has its entire top deck devoted to business class - while it wants to put on a second superjumbo on the Melbourne route by the end of the year.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/singa...625-20yfz.html

Looks like SQ are planning on adding a 2nd A380 service to MEL by the end of this year, is the morning departure (SQ237/238) more likely to go A380? I don't think MEL will be able to handle that many A380's especially in the morning, with x2 QF, x1 EK & possibly x2 SQ, with rumours of MH joining the party there won't be room! Despite this its great to see SQ expanding in MEL again.

Any chances of a 4th daily SQ service? Will Scoot serve MEL in the future?

[FlyBoy]

A few people on here suggested a 2nd daily A380 to MEL and yes they were right!

Great news for MEL and it will further hurt QF

EK adding their A380 later this year will also hurt QF

I believe that even with the new expansion MEL airport only has 3 x A380 gates ?

[SQflyergirl]

is the morning departure (SQ237/238) more likely to go A380?

I bet 217/218. Any takers?

[SQ218]

I bet 217/218. Any takers?

hmmm hope they don't replace the 77W with the A380.

If they do go 2xA380 I doubt they'd retain the 77W

[SMK77]

I bet 217/218. Any takers?

217/218 has never been A380... Why now?

And: when is getting SQ new aircrafts this year?

[SQflyergirl]

217/218 has never been A380... Why now?

Call it gut feel more than anything else.

[SMK77]

Call it gut feel more than anything else.

Your gut feeling might be based on some additional information not accessible to the common crowd here, hence I have just place two one way redemptions in October and January for MEL-SIN in First...

Fingers crossed!

[SQ228]

I bet 217/218. Any takers?

I'll back your bet for sure!

Why? I've never flown SQ217 and seen anything under 90% capacity, even during the early GFC days when European flights were half-empty.

More reasons? It used to be a 747 until 2008 when it went 77W, most likely in an effort to introduce the new product and phase out 744s.

MEL desperately needs more capacity if SQ wants to maintain market share.

Six weeks ago I tried to book flights out of MEL to DÜS for next week on SQ. No capacity in Y on any day, on any flight for the week. (Well I'm assuming the prices they were offering couldn't have been for Y!!) Most days there were J seats available, but some days only F. There were even days for which no tickets of any kind whatsoever were available out of MEL on SQ craft.

Star-alliance partners can't be happy about this. LH has a new A380 from SIN-FRA to fill and rely on SQ to get us from MEL to SIN. LH are now flying me on QF to SIN so that they can get my business. Do I want to fly LH or QF? No, I want to fly SQ.

If they can find the business for 4 daily flights to LHR, 3 of them 388s, then they could also find business for 4 daily flights to MEL, 2 of the 388s. But not if they never have any capacity- that's when people try their competitors and don't come back.

[SQ228]

I believe that even with the new expansion MEL airport only has 3 x A380 gates ?

The new satellite extension included 3 A380-capable gates, but this is in addition to the two gates in the original terminal building, 9 and 11, which had already been expanded and modified to allow A380 dual airbridges. These gates can also be used by two smaller planes simultaneously where they add the letters a and b to denote which section is which flight. Most flights to New Zealand are still served by 737s, so they don't need much room!

This is just what I know from observation and reading- anyone with sharper details feel free to add more info...

[zilchster]

Just saw this from Plane Talking.

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/

It says that SIA operates 105 weekly flights out of Australia as of Jul 2. Did a check. That's correct.

But towards the end the article says

In 2012, Singapore Airlines celebrates 45 years of service to Australia and the fifth anniversary of the first A380 flight, as well as further capacity increases by growing from 95 weekly services to 112 by the end of the year.

The additional 7 flights would be to Perth I assume? Strange that SQ didn't include Scoot in the mix. If they do, they would have 117 flights to Australia.

[SQ228]

There's been a few increases, some seasonal, some permanent, to Adelaide, Brisbane & Perth.

Does that number include Silk Air's new service to Darwin?

[aagan]

Is SQ237/238 Changing to Old 777-200?

Hello,

I just checked on some websites, SIN-MEL Flights were using 777-200 for a couple of times in the last 2 weeks. Is this information true? Does MEL got the old regional seats again?

Btw i got the information from http://flightaware.com/live/flight/SIA238

[SQ218]

Dummy bookings still show 777-300. If you scroll further to the bottom of your link look at the history. The 777-300 is still in use and also replaced by the 777-200 on certain days so it may depend on the load. The 77W was used on the 9th of Aug. So looks like this leg are now the lottery for SQ MEL flights.

[SQueeze]

as per this data ,

http://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/sq238

all has been 773 except for one day when 77W flew - and i think these are all the retrofitted birds.

does anyone know for sure which are unretrofitted? i know for sure 9V-SYE is not.