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  • Singapore Airlines does not have enough capacity to Australia

    Just for info:

    2 months out from Christmas, and we cannot fly Economy Class from Sydney EVERY DAY from mid-December to early January. As a minimum you need to fly Premium Economy.

    A few months ago, I have once again complained there's no Economy and even Premium Economy seats on SQ 218 3 months in advance for flights in June, and that followed with running out Economy Seats about a month in advance for Sydney - Singapore flights as well.

    It seems that during school holiday peak season, Singapore Airlines are just don't have enough economy seats to serve its demand.

    Reading about Singapore airlines’s losses and its inability to generate extra yield/revenue, why don't they review flight capacity to Australia and consider adding flights to Sydney/Melbourne during peak times? In particular where there's no bilateral restrictions of flights between Singapore and Australia unlike that with Hong Kong?

    In particular I recalled last year we had SQ261 and SQ 262, the Singapore - Jakarta - Sydney service. Where is it?

    And SQ 251/252 seems helpless with a B777-200ER. Perhaps it should be upgauged to B777-300 to accommodate more Economy Seats on that flight?

    I don't mind to fly Premium Economy, but the pricing for Premium Economy is strange as well. Fares are comparable to fly Economy at the same time with Qantas or Cathay Pacific to Hong Kong. I would have expected provided the high demand I will be paying $17XX return for Economy Flexi return, not Premium Economy. (Other airlines would have been offering $22XX for Premium Economy return)

    So any ideas/thoughts on whether SQ should increase Australia during the Christmas/Summer Peak Season?

  • #2
    I think the Ashes has a role to play in this. Demand between the U.K. And Australia will skyrocket over the late November - early January period.

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    • #3
      This happens every year, although it appears to be largely a MEL and SYD thing. A few years back I discovered the solution- book your outward flight around Xmas Day out of BNE or another port, e.g. CBR, ADL, then book a one-way VA flight to get to that port. Return home to SYD or MEL.

      My example booked in July this year:
      I booked BNE-DUS/DUS-MEL on SQ and 1-way MEL-BNE on VA.
      Saving compared to buying the still-available MEL-DUS return was $350

      2 years back I left it until October to book and MEL was sold out. Again, went via BNE and still got a very reasonable return price.

      Yes, they should add more flights, but may not be possible. If you look at the total number of flights at Xmas time out of MEL/SYD/BNE/CBR its actually higher than this time last year- it seems less because many of those additional flights last year were made permanent by August this year, such as BNE's 4th going daily, MEL's fifth going permanent 3x weekly instead of seasonal and SYD's non-daily flights being merged to form a 5th daily.

      I'm not sure what the costs are to get extra landing slots out of MEL, and surely SYD must be operating at capacity during holiday season. I guess putting on extra staff to run security and customs etc. may make the airports, who are pretty good at making money themselves, up the costs perhaps.

      The difficulty with upgauging is that at that time of year, there aren't many destinations that have lower patronage, so where do you take the bigger plane from? If you over-utilise A380s and one goes tech, then you've got a massive number of angry holiday makers to deal with and only smaller, older backup craft to fill in. The same with adding extra flights- it's a gamble on nothing going wrong. Other airlines might normally help out in a crisis, but they will be fully booked at Xmas too.

      I mean, I'd love to see extra flights just like you, but economics also dictates part of the lack of supply- if you spend extra on running extra flights, demand and thus ticket prices will then be lower and as a result, overall yield falls. I'd say the answer is that someone in finance crunched the numbers on it and "computer says no!"

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      • #4
        yes thishappens yearly and even in June and July too and the fares are super high too. At times SQ does upgrade one of the flights to a A380 from sin to mel. But overall, SQ have the highest fares from especially Sin to Mel and vv and most australian cities.

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        • #5
          I guess all it means is that SIA remains very popular for Australians. I mean with all the LCCs (Scoot, AirAsia, Jetstar, Malindo etc), plus BA and QF, SIA still has such good loads it shows that Aussies prefer SIA over many of those airlines. SIA would see that as golden time for profits.

          Definitely look at CBR as a point of entry/exit if MEL and SYD tickets is too hard to get.

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          • #6
            Originally posted by edison View Post
            I guess all it means is that SIA remains very popular for Australians. I mean with all the LCCs (Scoot, AirAsia, Jetstar, Malindo etc), plus BA and QF, SIA still has such good loads it shows that Aussies prefer SIA over many of those airlines. SIA would see that as golden time for profits.

            Definitely look at CBR as a point of entry/exit if MEL and SYD tickets is too hard to get.
            SQ is still very much popular with Aussies, SQ is a household name.

            Maybe wait until next year? QF will be adding alot of capacity on the MEL-SIN route, up-gauging a daily flight to A380 and increasing flights overall to x2 daily. That should take some pax away from SQ, however I doubt fares will change that much.

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            • #7
              BNE-SIN isn't cheap either.

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              • #8
                Ashes

                Every Christmas is busy, but this time around with the Ashes taking place and the series very competitive there will tens of thousands of additional people flying the Kangaroo route. It is a goldmine for airlines, and unfortunately not much that can be done to increase capacity where there are limited aircraft available.

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