SQ reinstating FRA-JFK, HKG-SFO in Nov

[SQ forever]

With the Crew & equipment shortfalls, the fifth-freedom flights will stay on the back-burner for longer & HKG-SFO is not the market it used to be, with CX paring it to 9 weekly now from 21 in 2019. the 779 will limit to the SYD-SIN-LHR runs for quite a while.

That said, the nonstops to SFO are doing really well, SQ would rather a third nonstop than a SIN-HKG-SFO.

Yet at the same time, I wonder if SQ may never bring it back if their nonstop SIN-SFO flights are doing good and perhaps, keep both daily 3-class A350's on this route.

Totally agree; I really wish this happens, this flight connects very well to a host of destinations from SIN in the morning and needs a larger Y cabin. Premium economy is small & not worth buying or upgrading at certain times. A third nonstop late afternoon from SIN and a midnight dep. from SFO on a 359ULR looks best.

[SQfanatic]

With the Crew & equipment shortfalls, the fifth-freedom flights will stay on the back-burner for longer & HKG-SFO is not the market it used to be, with CX paring it to 9 weekly now from 21 in 2019. the 779 will limit to the SYD-SIN-LHR runs for quite a while.

That said, the nonstops to SFO are doing really well, SQ would rather a third nonstop than a SIN-HKG-SFO.

Totally agree; I really wish this happens, this flight connects very well to a host of destinations from SIN in the morning and needs a larger Y cabin. Premium economy is small & not worth buying or upgrading at certain times. A third nonstop late afternoon from SIN and a midnight dep. from SFO on a 359ULR looks best.

That's true but you can't really rule out the possibility of still having a 779 either do SIN-SFO-SIN nonstop (if the range allows) or as time goes on and the number of 779's increase, they could bring the 5th freedom route back via HKG.

My concern is at this time, they took the 359 ULR out of service for now and subbed SQ34/33 with the 3-class A350. However, in January they will go back to the ULR. The upside is the convenience time-wise, because my mom & I took SQ33 in 2022 (with a 14.5 hour long layover in SIN) and in September both my parents are taking SQ33 that departs at 10PM and actually connecting to SQ524 (also MH A350) after a 3 hour halt, so that actually does good. At least that gives an ability to reach India in the daytime with a short halt and it's a good departure if you want to complete a proper full working day and leave to the airport (Reference a couple of trips where I had to take EK around 3:45PM or 4:45PM and as a remote worker had to adjust my working hours to complete a full day). This is good since SQ really brought a lot of the focus to increase Indian flights, especially the most popular routes like BOM, BLR, HYD and MAA. They should also consider the same for other routes (i.e COK, TRV, CCU, AMD) kind of like how EK has multiple Indian flight time options so that folks don't have to suffer waiting a full day in SIN unneccessarily.

The downside to that is after January, if you are looking for fares to go to MAA on this carrier, you have to take SQ31 or pay more to take SQ33 and it's Premium Economy. For example, I am planning to go in May next year for a week to MAA for my birthday and compared to September, the fares are fine but SQ33 only sells Premium Economy, not regular at all. They could do away and limit the ULR's to New York alone and possibly decide on a new route (i.e. Chicago, Dallas for example).

The only frames SQ uses on ultra long haul routes as 3-class are 12 frames, SMV-SJH (soon SJI). They honestly have enough frames to permanently keep SQ34/33 and possibly put a third daily SFO flight.

Question - While what you're saying is true for the SFO routes, then why is the LAX route still tagged with NRT? Easily they can also make it a nonstop route, too and also have a similar option like SFO, such that it also arrives in the evening in SIN with a reasonable connection time for Indian routes. The current LAX routes for some Indian destinations folks have to wait a long time.

[ell3]

I think your question about using the 5th freedom routes is more to do with demand vs equipment availability.
Pre-covid SFO used to have the demand for 3x daily. But they lacked available frames to do 3x direct. Therefore the use of the stopover in HKG for the 77Ws to do the rotation for the 3rd flight.

But today UA is doing 2x SFO direct, that sort of takes away some demand from SQ. Plus SIN-HK demand seems weak (they can’t even sustain 6 flights now when it used to be 7 pre-covid). So no 3rd flight to SFO from SIN.

likewise for LAX, it’s likely the demand for SIN-LAX is still there, just that they lack the frames to do it 3x direct from SIN.

[SQ forever]

Question - While what you're saying is true for the SFO routes, then why is the LAX route still tagged with NRT? Easily they can also make it a nonstop route, too and also have a similar option like SFO, such that it also arrives in the evening in SIN with a reasonable connection time for Indian routes. The current LAX routes for some Indian destinations folks have to wait a long time.

SFO-India traffic is tons ahead of LAX-India, esp. south india and NRT-LAX is working unlike HKG-SFO; CX noon flights are 2 weekly still.

& would love for SQ to keep their 350-LR on SQ34-33; this creates a very convienient evening departure bank for SFO-SouthIndia connections