A350 Deliveries and Routes

[SQKevin]

I see. Thanks for the update. Let us know if anything more on SMQ and SMR.

9V-SMQ is finally taken off on her 5th Test Flight after an entire month of inactivity. This is very unusual for a SQ frame. If she moves to the Delivery Centre to commence her CAF after today, there will still be a good chance of an end August delivery.

9V-SMR has not seen any activity since rolling out onto the Flight Line on 1 August. Again very unusual for an SQ frame. She is, however, still on track for an end of September delivery.

SQ doesn't seem to be in a hurry to have #17 & #18 delivered.

[happyflyer]

9V-SMQ is finally taken off on her 5th Test Flight after an entire month of inactivity. This is very unusual for a SQ frame. If she moves to the Delivery Centre to commence her CAF after today, there will still be a good chance of an end August delivery.

9V-SMR has not seen any activity since rolling out onto the Flight Line on 1 August. Again very unusual for an SQ frame. She is, however, still on track for an end of September delivery.

SQ doesn't seem to be in a hurry to have #17 & #18 delivered.

I think there have been some delays at Airbus factory recently.

HS-THG (TG #6) has only had 4 test flights so far since 7/Jul while B-LGA (HX #1) has only had 2 since 10/Aug as well. My TG A350 inaugural flight is once again postponed

[SQ217]

I think there have been some delays at Airbus factory recently.

Perhaps something to do with the summer holidays?

[SQfanatic]

Perhaps something to do with the summer holidays?

As they say August tends to be a slow month for particularly that reason sometimes

But yeah, I wonder what happened with SMQ, but thank you for keeping us updated.

[SQ228]

In terms of future destinations, the only announcements at present are FCO and BNE x3. None of the BNE flights will interwork with FCO's gaps, but now that the fleet has grown so large, it has a certain amount of built in slack. One pane for FCO will easily so and then one for each of the BNE flights, which will also give the A350 fleet further flexibility. That's SMQ-T accounted for.

There still don't seem to be any fixed plans to relieve IST or CHC of their old 772s, unless of course they plan to remove A350s from existing flights and switch them to 77Ws. I can't see them sending a 77W to IST or CHC but then you never know...

[flyguy]

believed SIA also needed some slack time for its A350s instead of making full use of the planes flying times as there seems to be quite a fair number of delays and substitutions of A350s flights over the past few months.

[SQfanatic]

Wow so no August deliveries on the A350's?!? Guess SMQ and SMR will both be a September delivery let us wait and see

[Arundel Lad]

I travel LHR-SIN-BNE several times each year, always with SQ, and have done since 2009. For most of that time I’ve rather enjoyed the 2-4-2 layout and the IFE of the A330 and I’m not looking forward to my next trip on a vintage B772. Based on comments here I expect shabby seats, IFE that doesn’t work, and reduced footspace.

The news that the BNE route will get A350 later this year is good from the point of view of comfort and amenities but I do wonder about the availability and pricing of Y product.

If my maths is correct, and all flights eventually go A350, each A330 has 255 Y seats while the A350 has just 187 – 27% fewer. Four A330s per day = 1020 Y seats vs four A350 = 748 ie 272 fewer and effectively taking capacity down by more than one flight per day.

If we assume that 96 Y passengers each day move up to Premium Economy in the A350 it still leaves 176 fewer seats per day.

In my experience there are not usually many empty seats on this route.

Has anyone experience of the effect on fares etc when SQ have cut Y capacity on similar routes elsewhere?

[SQKevin]

Wow so no August deliveries on the A350's?!? Guess SMQ and SMR will both be a September delivery let us wait and see

SMQ is again parked at the Flight line without any activity for more than a week. SMR has been there even longer without any activity, since the end of July. Contrary to August being a slow month, 3 A350s have been delivered with another two due to be delivered in a day or two. Cathay #18 was delivered today.

There doesn't appear to be any urgency to have the next 2 SQ A350s delivered. Perhaps it's the delivery schedule agreed with Airbus and the SQ frames are just coming out of production faster than planned. I guess that the 16 frames SQ currently has is more than adequate to meet her current operational needs. That being the case, SMQ and SMR will be only delivered by the end of September. SMS and SMT are still unpainted and cabin not fitted, so they could spill into early 2018 deliveries. Perhaps someone here has some idea as to why the A350 deliveries for SQ have slowed down quite drastically.

[SQ228]

I travel LHR-SIN-BNE several times each year, always with SQ, and have done since 2009. For most of that time I’ve rather enjoyed the 2-4-2 layout and the IFE of the A330 and I’m not looking forward to my next trip on a vintage B772. Based on comments here I expect shabby seats, IFE that doesn’t work, and reduced footspace.

The news that the BNE route will get A350 later this year is good from the point of view of comfort and amenities but I do wonder about the availability and pricing of Y product.

If my maths is correct, and all flights eventually go A350, each A330 has 255 Y seats while the A350 has just 187 – 27% fewer. Four A330s per day = 1020 Y seats vs four A350 = 748 ie 272 fewer and effectively taking capacity down by more than one flight per day.

If we assume that 96 Y passengers each day move up to Premium Economy in the A350 it still leaves 176 fewer seats per day.

In my experience there are not usually many empty seats on this route.

Has anyone experience of the effect on fares etc when SQ have cut Y capacity on similar routes elsewhere?

I'll be clear that I'm not trying to argue with you about any other points as I'm in agreement, but your calculations to be correct do require some adjustment. Up until now, the fourth flight has only been 3x weekly, i.e. 24 flights/wk. it has now increased to 28/wk only in the last few days, just prior to the A350 commencing.

One thing I can tell you is getting Y tickets out of BNE in peak season is still waaaay cheaper than out of MEL.

[9V-SML]

I travel LHR-SIN-BNE several times each year, always with SQ, and have done since 2009. For most of that time I’ve rather enjoyed the 2-4-2 layout and the IFE of the A330 and I’m not looking forward to my next trip on a vintage B772. Based on comments here I expect shabby seats, IFE that doesn’t work, and reduced footspace.

The news that the BNE route will get A350 later this year is good from the point of view of comfort and amenities but I do wonder about the availability and pricing of Y product.

If my maths is correct, and all flights eventually go A350, each A330 has 255 Y seats while the A350 has just 187 – 27% fewer. Four A330s per day = 1020 Y seats vs four A350 = 748 ie 272 fewer and effectively taking capacity down by more than one flight per day.

If we assume that 96 Y passengers each day move up to Premium Economy in the A350 it still leaves 176 fewer seats per day.

In my experience there are not usually many empty seats on this route.

Has anyone experience of the effect on fares etc when SQ have cut Y capacity on similar routes elsewhere?

I suspect that the reduction in Y capacity in utilising the A359 over A333 for SIN-BNE is to boost yields in Y. Pushing some capacity up from Y to PEY, and offloading some lower yielding Y capacity to TR which operates to SIN-OOL in a B787. Could work for the group, but I'd much rather pay for SQ than TR.

[SQ228]

I suspect that the reduction in Y capacity in utilising the A359 over A333 for SIN-BNE is to boost yields in Y. Pushing some capacity up from Y to PEY, and offloading some lower yielding Y capacity to TR which operates to SIN-OOL in a B787. Could work for the group, but I'd much rather pay for SQ than TR.

I think it's TZ operating the flight to OOL, not TR. Tiger has no international presence in Australia that I'm aware of and when Tiger brand launched an international flight with TT it ended up with 100s of people stranded at DPS due to red tape.

[SQ&me]

I think it's TZ operating the flight to OOL, not TR. Tiger has no international presence in Australia that I'm aware of and when Tiger brand launched an international flight with TT it ended up with 100s of people stranded at DPS due to red tape.

TZ and TR merged so Scoot now operates under the TR designator.

[SQKevin]

A 6th Test Flight for 9V-SMQ yesterday. A move to the Delivery Centre for her CAF could finally happen soon.

[Arundel Lad]

Many thanks to SQ228 for correcting my assumptions. I hadn't factored in the reduced 265/266 frequency as I've not used it. All in all the introduction of A350 to BNE promises to be something to look forward to.