Alternative route to Central/South America?

[CarbonMan]

Singapore has signed an Open Skies Agreement (OSA) with the South Pacific island nation, Tonga.

The agreement allows airlines of both countries to fly between Singapore and any points in Tonga without restrictions in capacity, frequency or aircraft type.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE ON ST

Apart from cosy "warm bilateral ties", what's does this really mean?

[9V-SIA]

Singapore has signed many of these agreements.

Does not translate to new routes though.

Similar agreement with Iceland comes to mind.

Was discussed here if I recall

[SQ228]

Apart from cosy "warm bilateral ties", what's does this really mean?

No more than that unless SQ wants to upgrade their airport or buy much smaller planes! Apparently a 767 can use the airport but preferably not fully loaded.

Maybe they see it as a Scoot or Silk destination, but there's not much hope of running a cross-pacific wide-bodied service through there any time soon.

It's a curious agreement given they could just codeshare an NZ flight out of Auckland and fill seats on their AKL flights.

[CarbonMan]

I guess Singapore just wants to show the aviation world that Open Skies, as a principle, is the way to go - and it will go about collecting a record number of OS agreements from geographically-challenged countries to demonstrate it.

[SQ228]

Yeah, I reckon it sounds like a fun game! They should negotiate one with Burkina Faso or Benin, just to say they can.

What would really impress me though, would be if they negotiated one with a tiny island nation not large enough to support more than a grassed landing strip for a Cessna.

[B727]

Singapore has signed an Open Skies Agreement (OSA) with the South Pacific island nation, Tonga.

The agreement allows airlines of both countries to fly between Singapore and any points in Tonga without restrictions in capacity, frequency or aircraft type

I have German friends who did a round-the-world itinerary combining SQ, NZ, and LH where they flew down to Asia on SQ and then continued on to New Zealand and the South Pacific on NZ. One of their stops in Oceania was Nuku'alofa Tonga (TBU-Fua'amotu airport).

I think if SQ wants to consider an alternate routing to South/Central America via the Pacific, it should consider doing it via SYD (did they give up on asking the Aussies for fifth freedom rights?) and touching down in LIM or SCL on the western coast of the South American continent (what's the bilateral like between Singapore and Panama? )