A380 to Beijing from 1 Aug 2014 : SQ 802 / 807

[feb01mel]

Singapore Airlines (SIA) will deploy the Airbus A380 on its daily service to Beijing starting August 1.

The superjumbo will be deployed on flight SQ802, which departs from Singapore at 0830 and arrives in Beijing at 1140. The return flight SQ807 leaves Beijing at 1635 for a scheduled touchdown at 2255 in Singapore.

Currently, the carrier operates four daily services to the Chinese Capital with a mixed fleet of B777 and A330 aircraft. Flight SQ802 and SQ807 are serviced by a Boeing 777-300ER in a three-class configuration, with eight seats in first (1-2-1), 42 in business (1-2-1) and 228 in economy (3-3-3). The superjumbo also sports a three-class configuration, but offers 12 seats in first (1-2-1), 60 in business (1-2-1) and 399 in economy (3-4-3 on the lower deck and 2-4-2 on the upper deck).

The change in aircraft may appear to represent an end-to-end upgrade of cabin capacity for the Singapore–Beijing service, but SIA has also announced that the A380 will in fact be replacing two of its flights to Beijing, which means that the city will only be served three times per day instead of four. The carrier has not confirmed which flight will be dropped, but even it is one flown by the smaller A330-300, which has 285 seats in a two-class configuration (30 in business and 255 in economy), it will still represent a decrease in overall capacity.

Beijing becomes the second city in China to be served by the A380 after Shanghai. The aircraft is also deployed to Hong Kong, as well as to Frankfurt, London, Los Angeles, Melbourne (until October 25), Mumbai, New Delhi, New York, Paris, Sydney, Tokyo Narita and Zurich.

For more information, visit www.singaporeair.com


http://www.businesstraveller.asia/as...ity-to-beijing

[Kyo]

I bet they chop the silly 2am SIN departure

[SilverChris]

They yanked the A380 from HKG. My SQ856 for this Aug is now operated by a 77W. Some might call this a downgrade but I managed to snag 11A so I'm not complaining!

[SQ228]

Be aware that there are some equipment swaps happening in early August again this year to send A380s to KIX and NGO. Currently they always pull one from MEL, but they will have to target somewhere else next year!

[bent]

SQ 800 and SQ 806 continue to operate while SQ 810 is dropped

[Kyo]

Which means SQ803 is dropped, yes?

[259850]

Which means SQ803 is dropped, yes?

Yes, 803 and 810 are dropped. It's going to be tougher now to get discounted business class seats on 806.

I was flying out to PEK on Monday, and couldn't get a confirmed business class seat on 806 even though I booked 2 weeks ahead (the morning flight was full as well). I ended up flying CZ via CAN (for less than S$1,000 one way). Not too bad...they had a B787 on the CAN-PEK leg. SIN-PEK was on a new A320 with PTVs. It was all a blessing in disguise as SQ806 was delayed by >2 hrs that day as they had found suspicious white powder in the cargo hold, and had to source a replacement plane.

Next time I'll probably try CA...they're using new A330s on the SIN route. This time I had to meetings in PEK and SHA, so it ended up being convenient to fly CZ out and MU back.

The Chinese airlines - with their buying binge - have acceptable hard products now.....the soft product still falls short, but ok on such short routes.

[Kyo]

If you're flying CA, do it in J, that's all I can say. Even Y+ is... underwhelming.

[flyguy]

looks like SIA have too many A380s and the long hauls are not as good as it had originally use the A380s for - and now we see the A380s deploying to Beijing, Shanghai and India - and in fact reducing the number of flight frequency to these destinations. And these are are all regional ones with less than 6 hours flight time - which is less than half the the number of hours than what the A380s can fly.

[SQueeze]

looks like SIA have too many A380s and the long hauls are not as good as it had originally use the A380s for - and now we see the A380s deploying to Beijing, Shanghai and India - and in fact reducing the number of flight frequency to these destinations. And these are are all regional ones with less than 6 hours flight time - which is less than half the the number of hours than what the A380s can fly.

Long haul routes naturally have more intense competition and it's harder to fill up the planes. Pax these days have options to stop in many alternative hubs and the total hours flown don't differ as much - may be 3-4 hours longer on 12 hours flights - 17 hrs vs 12 hrs.

On regional routes, you don't want to change flights because instead of flying 4-5 hours you can land up with almost double.