A350 Deliveries and Routes

[SQfanatic]

Seriously, are you are joking about this? You've been speculating about the assignment of new aircraft to Indian routes for absolutely months and haven't bothered to check one of several, well known sources for this highly relevant information?

I have heard some discussion though that SQ were looking at developing a specific seating variation of the 78X for Indian routes in conjunction with Vistara...

I made a mistake....I meant to say that CCU and BLR get the 350 Regional Variant while BOM gets the longhaul 359 variant. That's what I meant to say - I switched them around.

[SQfanatic]

Stop wondering and go to Singaporeair.com to find out yourself.

To answer your question on Y class seats:

359R has 263 Y-class seats
78X has 301 Y-class seats

Whereas the A330 has 253 Y-class seats so it does make sense why the 359R is being used on the A330/772 routes and not the 78X.

Looks like MAA may go 359R.

[SQ228]

To answer your question on Y class seats:

359R has 263 Y-class seats
78X has 301 Y-class seats

Whereas the A330 has 253 Y-class seats so it does make sense why the 359R is being used on the A330/772 routes and not the 78X.

Looks like MAA may go 359R.

No, to answer YOUR question. The rest of us didn't need to know any of this because we've known it for ages and if we weren't sure we would look it up before posting out of consideration for others.

[SQ957]

To answer your question on Y class seats:

359R has 263 Y-class seat
78X has 301 Y-class seats

Whereas the A330 has 253 Y-class seats so it does make sense why the 359R is being used on the A330/772 routes and not the 78X.

Looks like MAA may go 359R.

FYI, the A330 has 255 Economy class seats.

To answer your question, the 78X is also replacing A330/772 routes along with the 359R. For example, starting May 1, the 78X will replace a 772 on SQ402/401 to DEL, and replace the A330 on: SQ 602/603, SQ 608/607 (both ICN); SQ 946/947 (DPS) and SQ 970/973 (BKK).

Hopefully you are wondering no more.

(Sorry for going out of thread)

[vasqflyer]

This is great confirmation of what we've expected for a while that more long hauls would be on the way. BNE was able to supply some extra long hauls by switching to regional config but not all.

We should see IST go A350 with this new set, as well as providing SEA with a plane. CPH is going daily A350, MXP is increasing to daily, possible movements with MAN running at such high capacity on the SIN-MAN sector could occur and I might not be surprised if we saw DUS add capacity at least on a seasonal basis.

I am very interested to see what this will mean for the US operations. The 5 new long haul A350s will probably get allocated (to the extent possible) to SEA the non ULR SFO flight. The ULR development resulted in a range increase for all A350s ( will go back and check for the link - I posted it on another thread a while back) which should allow SFO and SEA without blocking any seats.

I think it is possible we may see of the ULR LAX flights shift to the 'new' standard config A350s which should help reduce the PE glut the LAX. This could let let the ULR open up another 3 frequencies to EWR?

I am sure SQ will restructure the direct US flights somehow - looking at pricing, Business from SIN is doing well (SFO is their highest priced destination regularly). LAX and EWR are up there too. PE is still often sold for around the same price as the one stop Economy product. The worst is LAX because of the volume. SFO only has the 3 PE heavy ULR flights each week and EWR is just the one flight. LAX has the daily and extra 3 weekly flights which is clearly a struggle to fill.

AS SQ228 pointed out, the extra capacity will enable the IST, MXP and CPN changes - just more likely to get the older aircraft.

[SQ957]

Is it likely that the new batch of long haul A350s will be delivered with 280t MTOW? That would be very nicely suited for nonstops to SEA, SFO and even LAX (if SQ decides to put a standard long haul bird there).

The current long haul A350s all have 275t.

[yuuka_miya]

Although it makes me think that if they were going to change the MTOW and general performance characteristics, why not just jump to SJx directly?

They can still offer the standard seat map...

[FN-GM]

I am not an expert so apologies if this is a stupid question. Would it be possible to retrofit the improvements to the existing A350s? I am not sure what was done but I seem to recall Airbus describing them as minor changes.

[SQ228]

Although it makes me think that if they were going to change the MTOW and general performance characteristics, why not just jump to SJx directly?

They can still offer the standard seat map...

Yeah I'm thinking like you as well. I'm inclined to think these extra 5 are going to be identical in every respect to the existing 21.

[boing]

I am not an expert so apologies if this is a stupid question. Would it be possible to retrofit the improvements to the existing A350s? I am not sure what was done but I seem to recall Airbus describing them as minor changes.

If my memory serves me right, a wing twist was incoporated into the newer batch of A350s along with an extended use of carbon fibre replacing conventional material near the door area. Remember the winglet also had minor changes bringing a single digit percentage improvement in performance.

Not things that can be retrofitted into existing planes.

[vasqflyer]

Yeah I'm thinking like you as well. I'm inclined to think these extra 5 are going to be identical in every respect to the existing 21.

Yes that is a very good point. I did manage to dig up the CAPA article https://centreforaviation.com/analys...ustomer-431110 and you are right - it would need the 280t version. Agree they would not carry on the name reg sequence if they were taking a different version.

[SQ957]

Since Airbus’ improvements to the A350 as stated by boing are now standard in every new A350 produced, those extra 5 would incorporate these improvements as well.

They may still stick to 275t, but if they were to take the 280t variant instead I agree with yuuka_miya that they could jump to SJ* directly.

[yuuka_miya]

Speaking of which, I kind of wonder whether SQ might take any A35Ks, especially if QF goes with the 35K for Sunrise.

It looks possible to configure the 35K in a 300-pax or so layout, providing something between the 350/77W @ 253/264 seats and the 779 which may be around 400 seats.

And/or they could offer F.

[FN-GM]

I was speaking to a friend yesterday and come to the realisation that the next delivery will mean 50% of the total A350 order has been delivered.

[9V-JKL]

It looks possible to configure the 35K in a 300-pax or so layout, providing something between the 350/77W @ 253/264 seats and the 779 which may be around 400 seats.

I curious how you would configure an A35K hold 300 seats using existing SQ seats? Its cabin length is a mere 1m different from a 77W measured door to door.