Silk Air to be merged into Singapore Airlines

[EWR]

I guess it depends on your luck. Looks like they may move their flights whenever they feel like. I just happened to notice a flyscoot facebook posting by Da Ming on 20-Nov-2018 who says that he received an email notification at 0200hr for his 0555hr flight (less than 4-hrs before his flight!) that the flight will be re-scheduled to 1945!

I don't think Scoot will re-ticket/re-book you to SQ/NH flights. Also, they will most likely refund you ticket in the form of Scoot vouchers with validity of 6-months!

The latter scenario you describe will not happen in most likelihood. Cash (or credit card) refund will definitely be an option, I was told (in fact they are happy to get out of the contract). My ticket/contract is with MI, not with Scoot. I don't mind taking a Scoot flight, but it has to be the same days (with luggage etc of course), otherwise I will have to extend my holiday. So my question is really how likely will the new flight days swing or be the same - which I suppose nobody but MI/TR knows at this point.

But you are reminding me that if I do switch over to TR, where the new schedule permits, I will be on TR terms. Let me try to get them to rebook to final destination on SQ-other airline combi (it is not NH).

Addendum from ST: "Customers with existing bookings on all affected routes will be provided the option to switch to the new Scoot, SIA or SilkAir flights where possible, or will be given refunds."

[Metropolitan Airlines]

There's isn't enough demand for premium passengers, SIA group is not dumb to abandon those routes to Scoot if it was making $$$$
It's easier to sell seats cheaply and gain more revenue from the flight

And those routes alone on Economy are not cheap at all, even for Business trips, companies no longer have loyalty to a single airline, they go for whichever cheapest. Eg Lombok/Bali, sometimes the Economy class fares are close to Business Class on Garuda
My previous company, a Japanese MNC, even executives don't get to fly Business. Meeting at New York, you fly in to arrive in the morning, do your meeting, fly back the same day, the hotel is your flight.

And yes youngsters now prefers LCCs, they don't really care about the flight services and just wants to get point to point as cheaply as possible. That's where the industry is heading towards, which also force full-service airlines to cram more seats in Economy and find ways to generate ancillary revenue, seat selections, lounge access, inflight wifi... etc

I have no opposition towards charging for seat selections, lounge access, inflight wifi... etc, in fact I would prefer if SIA Group can charge economy and premium economy passengers lounge access to SilverKris so that those who cannot afford to pay Business/First can still enjoy premium perks whilst increasing revenue for SIA. I believe S$100 is a good price for SilverKris and S$250 is good for The Private Room.

I also have no opposition towards charging for seat selections because this enables me to select the best seat on the plane without worrying they are taken by others.

I also believe WiFi access inflight is a privilege and I think charging for it is fair enough.

What I do not agree is that when Silkair is replaced by Scoot without other direct full service alternative we will have no access to these privilege anymore, even if you can afford them.

Please have a close look at what kind of rubbish Scoot and other LCCs are offering:

- No Priority Baggage, even you pay $ for it.
- No Lounge Access for SilverKris or KrisFlyer Gold Lounge
- No options for a 3 course meal, even you pay for it
- No options to have a table cloth placed underneath your meal
- No options to have a middle seat empty, creating your own European Business Class seat
- No inflight WiFi, even you can afford one
- No inflight entertainment, even you can afford
- No inflight maps, risking ourselves to be on another MH370

I am a youngster as well and I need all things mentioned above. I think if people don't want those things, then they can catch a bus, ferry or train to their destinations, and need not flying.

Aircraft are like cruise ships, itself is a tourist feature. Therefore as I cannot imagine how you can survive in a cruise ship without inclusive of food, bedding and entertainment, so I cannot imagine how flying can be done without checked luggage, inflight entertainment (at least a live flight map), and a meal included as a bare minimum.

[jbflyer]

I have no opposition towards charging for seat selections, lounge access, inflight wifi... etc, in fact I would prefer if SIA Group can charge economy and premium economy passengers lounge access to SilverKris so that those who cannot afford to pay Business/First can still enjoy premium perks whilst increasing revenue for SIA. I believe S$100 is a good price for SilverKris and S$250 is good for The Private Room.

Personally I do not think this is a good idea. My last Silver Kris lounge was quite bad due to overcrowded issue. The lounge is full house and hardly to find an empty seat or table. After in the lounge for a while, we found a small table for 2. Lounge staff took an extra chair for us. Imaging that 3 chairs for 5 adults and a baby.
After a while, a cleaning staff was trying to clean up the messy table we just occupied and complaining that we were blocking his way (we were not the one who moved the chair and put on the walkway.....).
If SQ accept pay-per-use guests, I do not think the lounge will be a cosy place to stay before the flight..

[EWR]

- No Priority Baggage, even you pay $ for it.
- No Lounge Access for SilverKris or KrisFlyer Gold Lounge
- No options for a 3 course meal, even you pay for it
- No options to have a table cloth placed underneath your meal
- No options to have a middle seat empty, creating your own European Business Class seat
- No inflight WiFi, even you can afford one
- No inflight entertainment, even you can afford
- No inflight maps, risking ourselves to be on another MH370

I am a youngster as well and I need all things mentioned above. I think if people don't want those things, then they can catch a bus, ferry or train to their destinations, and need not flying.

Is this a parody?

[shikhargpt]

Is this a parody?

I wish it was, this guy seems genuine.

[boing]

Governments around the world should also ban any airlines who cannot provide free meals, free 30kg baggage allowance, lounge access, business class service from flying.

You sound like an elite belonging in the upper echelon of society breathing in rarefied air that most people can only dream of. Unfortunately, or fortunately in this matter, you are a minority.

Majority of the travelling public are people who treasure value for money. They scout for the cheapest offers available via apps like skyscanner. I can well afford a ticket on a full service carrier. But if the difference is a few hundred dollars and if I'm travelling as a family, that adds up to a thousand or more dollars in ticket alone. That can mean a day or two extra in my holiday itinerary which is miles better than frills in a metal tube.

No IFE, download a few movies in your phone or tablet to watch. No meals, buy your own meals onboard or eat before your flight. Btw, MH370 should have had moving maps.
Commercial air travel was built for the masses and the market is moving towards LCC direction,whether you like it or not. Even some companies I know book their staff on EY class for staff travel. SQ has to adapt to survive this harsh new environment which they are not used to.

As for someone who is used to all these frills, I suggest you fly on private jets which have everything you have requested and more. Singapore has opened an airport just to cater to your demographics.

[vasqflyer]

SilkAir to give up some routes to Scoot ahead of merger with SIA

Scoot will acquire some SilkAir routes over the next two years, ahead of SilkAir's merger into Singapore Airlines (SIA).

Scoot, SIA's budget arm, will also be transferring some of its services to existing destinations served by SIA and SilkAir.

The changes are expected to take place between April 2019 and the second half of 2020, SIA said on Thursday (Nov 22).


From SilkAir to Scoot:

• Luang Prabang and Vientiane in Laos, in April 2019

• Coimbatore, Trivandrum and Visakhapatnam in India, between May 2019 and October 2019

• Changsha, Fuzhou, Kunming and Wuhan in China, between May 2019 and June 2019

• Chiang Mai in Thailand, in October 2019

• Kota Kinabalu in Malaysia, in December 2019

• Balikpapan, Lombok, Makassar, Manado, Semarang and Yogyakarta in Indonesia, between May 2020 and July 2020


From Scoot to SIA (Both are existing SIA destinations):

• Bengaluru and Chennai in India, in May 2019 and May 2020


From Scoot to SilkAir (Both are existing SilkAir destinations)

• Shenzhen in China, from June 2019

• Kochi in India, from October 2019

The Bengaluru and Chennai changes are very interesting in the context of the current status of the bilateral. SQ have pretty much used up the capacity available to Singapore carriers under the agreement which is based on number of seats rather than flights.

Being so close to capacity probably means some consolidation is required to facilitate SQ changing from the A330 and 777 to the A350 / 787 (based on the assumption that SQ does not want to cut its capacity to the other major cities).

Bengaluru gets the regional 777 daily, the daily scoot A320 and 5 times weekly silkair flight. The 777 has 38 J and 228 Y for a total of 263. This would be a weekly seat count of 1,841 for the flight.

The regional 350s would have 40J and 263Y for a total of 303 seats a flight and a weekly seat count of 2,121. The 787 would have 36 J and 301 Y for a total of 337 seats a flight and a weekly seat count of 2,359.

The end of the scoot flight will provide 1,260 additional seats allowing the swap to either the A350 or the 787. The additional seats could also allow silkair to increase its flight to daily giving SQ a day and a night departure from the city.

Some of the extra capacity would also allow the Chennai MI flight to be upgraded to a higher frequency.

As the Scoot Chennai flight is already operated with 335 seats, it could be directly replaced by a new SQ flight.

[lingua101]

There's isn't enough demand for premium passengers, SIA group is not dumb to abandon those routes to Scoot if it was making $$$$
It's easier to sell seats cheaply and gain more revenue from the flight

And those routes alone on Economy are not cheap at all, even for Business trips, companies no longer have loyalty to a single airline, they go for whichever cheapest. Eg Lombok/Bali, sometimes the Economy class fares are close to Business Class on Garuda
My previous company, a Japanese MNC, even executives don't get to fly Business. Meeting at New York, you fly in to arrive in the morning, do your meeting, fly back the same day, the hotel is your flight.

And yes youngsters now prefers LCCs, they don't really care about the flight services and just wants to get point to point as cheaply as possible. That's where the industry is heading towards, which also force full-service airlines to cram more seats in Economy and find ways to generate ancillary revenue, seat selections, lounge access, inflight wifi... etc

Actually I am not very surprise with the move especially those cities in Indonesia. the only one I kind of miss is Balikpapan. I thought MI will still retain it as I thought it still sizeable of expat community there due to mining activities.

I am betting the next move SUB and KUL will all got o "MI" (or the smaller planes service)

[lingua101]

- No Priority Baggage, even you pay $ for it.
- No Lounge Access for SilverKris or KrisFlyer Gold Lounge
- No options for a 3 course meal, even you pay for it
- No options to have a table cloth placed underneath your meal
- No options to have a middle seat empty, creating your own European Business Class seat
- No inflight WiFi, even you can afford one
- No inflight entertainment, even you can afford
- No inflight maps, risking ourselves to be on another MH370

Are those you mentioned available on MI flights?

I took MI flights between SIN and KNO, I feel like flying budget airline and the return flight was late for 1.5 hours when the flight itself was only 55 minutes!!!

At the end of the day, SQ is struggling to revamp the business model as it is no longer profitable as before.

I kind of see that SQ will follow QF model and probably will sell TR+SQ combine fare (as MI will absorb into SQ so there will be no more MI technically). But I think it will create more complain as some customer probably expecting TR service is like SQ as it is ticketed on SQ ticket stock.

[SQ957]

Please have a close look at what kind of rubbish Scoot and other LCCs are offering:

- No inflight maps, risking ourselves to be on another MH370

Firstly, all MH 777-200s had inflight maps.

Second, are you saying that all planes without inflight maps available to passengers are at risk of being another MH370? Even with the pilots (and flight trackers) having full knowledge of the plane's location?

[ycp81]

Wonder if the MI B738s will retain the existing Jcl and sold as ScootBiz instead. At least this would retain some sort of "premium" product, and the MI Jcl seats are not much different from the existing ScootBiz seats on the B787s anyway.

[davidfusq]

Wonder if the MI B738s will retain the existing Jcl and sold as ScootBiz instead. At least this would retain some sort of "premium" product, and the MI Jcl seats are not much different from the existing ScootBiz seats on the B787s anyway.

It would be a cheap conversion program if Scoot elects to just reupholster the seat on MI without much cabin modification and deploy these aircraft on route with slightly more premium demand, eg. Jakarta, Bangkok, Taipei, Hong Kong. But making this move might be seen as encroaching into SQ market.

Instead I see from a narrow body fleet consistency consideration, probably Scoot will refit the whole cabin with denser configuration, ie. reducing seat pitch, removing the drop down monitors used for safety video and silent feature, etc.

[ycp81]

It would be a cheap conversion program if Scoot elects to just reupholster the seat on MI without much cabin modification and deploy these aircraft on route with slightly more premium demand, eg. Jakarta, Bangkok, Taipei, Hong Kong. But making this move might be seen as encroaching into SQ market.

Instead I see from a narrow body fleet consistency consideration, probably Scoot will refit the whole cabin with denser configuration, ie. reducing seat pitch, removing the drop down monitors used for safety video and silent feature, etc.

Scoot might use the 'cheap' move and retain ScootBiz on the B738-operated longer-haul thin routes to India/China and selected regional flights. Already, Scoot is operating 787s on flights of similar lengths with even more ScootBiz seats per flight, and there could still be some demand for 'premium' product (though less premium than full-service) and SQ group may be cautious not to remove such products entirely from the market. Anyway the current MI B738 seats in Ey is nowhere better than those currently on Scoot's B787s. Just remove the MI free frills and it would be totally Scoot.

[Unionruler]

Wonder if the MI B738s will retain the existing Jcl and sold as ScootBiz instead. At least this would retain some sort of "premium" product, and the MI Jcl seats are not much different from the existing ScootBiz seats on the B787s anyway.

Actually if I were management I would do this because I expect a good proportion of the ScootBiz pax to those destinations to be codeshare pax on SQ tickets (not to forget some Singapore-based pax who always had to travel those routes for work). Otherwise the pax ex would be too juxtaposed in a jarring way.

[lingua101]

It would be a cheap conversion program if Scoot elects to just reupholster the seat on MI without much cabin modification and deploy these aircraft on route with slightly more premium demand, eg. Jakarta, Bangkok, Taipei, Hong Kong. But making this move might be seen as encroaching into SQ market.

Instead I see from a narrow body fleet consistency consideration, probably Scoot will refit the whole cabin with denser configuration, ie. reducing seat pitch, removing the drop down monitors used for safety video and silent feature, etc.

I don't think (and hope) SQ will deploy narrow body to Jakarta. If they can afford 9 daily flights now to Jakarta, I do not see the reason why they want to downgrade the flight to narrow body. Surely they can carry enough connecting passenger to/from Jakarta.

I suspect Surabaya will be downgraded to both narrow body removing the morning departure SQ flight which reinstated right after BR joined the *A. but now with BR pulled out of SUB and MI reintegration, I think the morning SUB flight will be replaced by narrow body.

Likewise KUL. There is only 3 SQ flights to KUL on weekday and 1 on weekend, which clearly show that there is no demand on the weekend and hence SQ decides not to fly that 2 SQ flights on weekend. I think KUL will see all narrow body flight with probably increase of frequencies.

HAN may also suffer the same faith. I am guessing the reason why SQ still fly there in the morning is to have *A presence, otherwise, all the traffic will go to TG. Again, the morning flight will go to narrow body and I think it may increase the frequencies to 3x/day.

I don't think HKG will get narrow body, as SQ is risking losing the business to CX.


Overall, I really hope, the narrow body biz will be something like regional biz on B787 and not siimply like premium economy seat.