A350 Deliveries and Routes

[SQMilan]

Here in Milan Singapore Airlines announced few days ago that it will introduce PE from Milan soon. Please, could anyone remind me how many A350s Singapore Airlines is expecting to have in its fleet by the end of the year? Thank you.

[alian]

I understand that there are not many of these birds around and probably few here have flown the A350. Just like to check if anyone with any advice on where is best to sit on the A350?

I just got 4 J savers for next year June flight on the non-stop to SFO. 2 adults and 2 young children and 1 infant (lap infant). Currently got them to assign us 19AD/20AD. Thinking is so that we have easy access to the children if required, compared to two middle seats where we need to go through the galley to help them.

I've not flown on SQ J long haul (yet), only on the regional J and the old 747 F. I know the seats are wide compared to other airline's J seats. Are they wide for 1 adult plus 1 infant? Or is the bassinet preferred? How likely are all 4 bassinet seats to be occupied, such that I'd have to give up one (since I currently hold 2)? I can see from the seat map that 20A is start of the wing, is it hard to see out from there?

I believe J are J seats, without too much difference around the plane, especially if travelling alone. Just that travelling with kids would require us to help them quite a bit. Furthermore, this far out from the flight, most of the seats are empty, so we could select any combination we need now.

Hi I've done the A350 in J previously. I think you've got a pretty good set up of 19/20 A/D seating as this provides you with good access to assist the kids as well as a bulkhead option for the infant.

Have a great trip and Safe travels

[fone]

I understand that there are not many of these birds around and probably few here have flown the A350. Just like to check if anyone with any advice on where is best to sit on the A350?

I just got 4 J savers for next year June flight on the non-stop to SFO. 2 adults and 2 young children and 1 infant (lap infant). Currently got them to assign us 19AD/20AD. Thinking is so that we have easy access to the children if required, compared to two middle seats where we need to go through the galley to help them.

I've not flown on SQ J long haul (yet), only on the regional J and the old 747 F. I know the seats are wide compared to other airline's J seats. Are they wide for 1 adult plus 1 infant? Or is the bassinet preferred? How likely are all 4 bassinet seats to be occupied, such that I'd have to give up one (since I currently hold 2)? I can see from the seat map that 20A is start of the wing, is it hard to see out from there?

I believe J are J seats, without too much difference around the plane, especially if travelling alone. Just that travelling with kids would require us to help them quite a bit. Furthermore, this far out from the flight, most of the seats are empty, so we could select any combination we need now.

[SQ228]

Excellent! No.4 all ready for DUS.

If only they'd started the DUS flights a fortnight earlier, I'd have been on the first return flight and this first departure out of DUS...

But I now have my first A350 flight booked before the end of the year.

[SQKevin]

9V-SMD has just taken off on her Delivery Flight to Changi as SQ8895. She will arrive at Changi at about 10am tomorrow morning.

[SQKevin]

9V-SMD has just completed its CAF (Customer Acceptance Flight).

[SQfanatic]

I think MAN should be split from MUC as the current offering is clearly not attractive to SE Asian customers catching SQ - they might be better off catching EK, EY or CX instead.

Moreover, I wonder if CX can start MAD themselves, why SQ is struggling to make BCN 4x weekly as a standalone direct sector? If BCN is not the best port to go, perhaps they can switch to MAD instead?

Finally, rather to launch a JV with Air France and have to deal with the restrictions within Star Alliance, why SQ don't retire 1 or 2 A380s for a more frequent A350 service to CDG and ZRH? In today's aviation world, I think frequency, rather than capacity is the key to success. Therefore I would encourage SQ to seriously ditch some more A380s in replacement of A350s to Europe to beat Cathay Pacific.

You are right it is best to have more frequency than capacity. I was eyeing at both CDG and ZRH where they have only been using the A380 with the 2006 products for several months. They could have benefitted from maybe a double daily 77WR like they did when they first received 77W aircraft, and when the A380 came, only 1 daily flight.

They could seriously go for A350's. Again a good idea but maybe they can temporarily use a 77WR twice daily for those routes until unless more A350's come giving breathing room to use them on those routes.

[SQMilan]

I think MAN should be split from MUC as the current offering is clearly not attractive to SE Asian customers catching SQ - they might be better off catching EK, EY or CX instead.

Moreover, I wonder if CX can start MAD themselves, why SQ is struggling to make BCN 4x weekly as a standalone direct sector? If BCN is not the best port to go, perhaps they can switch to MAD instead?

Finally, rather to launch a JV with Air France and have to deal with the restrictions within Star Alliance, why SQ don't retire 1 or 2 A380s for a more frequent A350 service to CDG and ZRH? In today's aviation world, I think frequency, rather than capacity is the key to success. Therefore I would encourage SQ to seriously ditch some more A380s in replacement of A350s to Europe to beat Cathay Pacific.

You should remember that Madrid it's Iberia's hub and Iberia is part of oneworld as Cathay Pacific is. So I think that CX's flight to Madrid could catch connections from the rest of Spain and Portugal (perhaps also people heading for Macau?).

I think that if SQ wants to offer to BCN a non-stop link in order to compete with Gulf carriers, a 4 weekly flight could be enough for the entire year.

But if BCN is not able to guarantee enough passengers in order to make the route profitable, they could, for instance, offer non-stop flights during peak season (e.g. from June to October) and then offer 4 weekly flight as SIN-FCO-BCN in the rest of the year (and at the same time FCO would be operated by its own flight during peak season). So Rome would benefit from 2 extra weekly frequencies during winter season.

[Dobbo]

I think MAN should be split from MUC as the current offering is clearly not attractive to SE Asian customers catching SQ - they might be better off catching EK, EY or CX instead

I agree, on an MAN-SIN route it is as quick to go via Heathrow, Dubai, Doha, Abu Dhabi and there are also better frequencies. CX are likely to go at least daily within the next 12-18 months and there is likely to be an influx of Chinese carriers over the next couple of years. There is competition, but the market is growing rapidly.

As of around March, MAN was on around 60% of the load on the MUC-SIN sector so it probably would work - albeit it would be a big jump to go Daily straight away so maybe an interim step is needed?

[Metropolitan Airlines]

What impact is this going to have in MAN? Clearly it looks to have been bumped down the A350 pecking order, might it be doable as a standalone in the B77W?

I think MAN should be split from MUC as the current offering is clearly not attractive to SE Asian customers catching SQ - they might be better off catching EK, EY or CX instead.

Moreover, I wonder if CX can start MAD themselves, why SQ is struggling to make BCN 4x weekly as a standalone direct sector? If BCN is not the best port to go, perhaps they can switch to MAD instead?

Finally, rather to launch a JV with Air France and have to deal with the restrictions within Star Alliance, why SQ don't retire 1 or 2 A380s for a more frequent A350 service to CDG and ZRH? In today's aviation world, I think frequency, rather than capacity is the key to success. Therefore I would encourage SQ to seriously ditch some more A380s in replacement of A350s to Europe to beat Cathay Pacific.

[vasqflyer]

With concentration fully on US flights and fixing up BCN/MXP post-GRU, I would think it hard to see any change to other Euro routes for another 6-12 months maybe. The impact on MUC from the introduction of DUS is yet to be felt and CPH still has the old 772s, as well as IST and FCO.

The SFO announcement really blows away everything we had thought was going to happen for the time-being, and that follows the JNB announcement, which had previously been thought of as a low priority for SQ. Literally anything could happen now- like will DME/IAH suddenly go A359 to keep it afloat? My suspicion is that the SQ325/6/7/8 network will be left alone for the moment as it occupies 3x 77WR quite neatly and usually provides a good yield, while they concentrate on more pressing concerns. But who knows...

I agree. It looks like everything we thought about old 777s leaving has been wrong too. It may be possible that at the end of the year / early next year a few 772ERs are freed up to replace Brisbane and other cities that need a full flat bed instead of the regional product. Maybe a few of the 772s might leave towards the back of that time frame too but other than that, no major changes until next year.

[SQ228]

What impact is this going to have in MAN? Clearly it looks to have been bumped down the A350 pecking order, might it be doable as a standalone in the B77W?

With concentration fully on US flights and fixing up BCN/MXP post-GRU, I would think it hard to see any change to other Euro routes for another 6-12 months maybe. The impact on MUC from the introduction of DUS is yet to be felt and CPH still has the old 772s, as well as IST and FCO.

The SFO announcement really blows away everything we had thought was going to happen for the time-being, and that follows the JNB announcement, which had previously been thought of as a low priority for SQ. Literally anything could happen now- like will DME/IAH suddenly go A359 to keep it afloat? My suspicion is that the SQ325/6/7/8 network will be left alone for the moment as it occupies 3x 77WR quite neatly and usually provides a good yield, while they concentrate on more pressing concerns. But who knows...

[Dobbo]

What impact is this going to have in MAN? Clearly it looks to have been bumped down the A350 pecking order, might it be doable as a standalone in the B77W?

[loldude333]

Flew SMC as SQ891 HKG-SIN yesterday. J on award (a case of use 'em or lose 'em). NBC was nice, an improvement over the original 77W and A380 ones, with intermediate reclined mode. Didn't try bed mode tho. Being a short fart, had no problem with my feet in the hole (still angled). 6 footers would be in trouble I think. 11DF for those who want to sleep straight.

Just wondering, have you sat on the new J in the 77WN/77WR? Have heard that the overall experience is better due to the 77W having a wider body, though i could be wrong. Have sat the new J in 77WN, have to agree that its quite brilliant. Either way, the new J is definitely an improvement over the old one (which is still great)!

[Danny Bhoy]

Flew SMC as SQ891 HKG-SIN yesterday. J on award (a case of use 'em or lose 'em). NBC was nice, an improvement over the original 77W and A380 ones, with intermediate reclined mode. Didn't try bed mode tho. Being a short fart, had no problem with my feet in the hole (still angled). 6 footers would be in trouble I think. 11DF for those who want to sleep straight.