Singapore Airlines’ no-frills, budget-carrier Scoot is resuming daily flights between Chennai and Singapore starting November 5 after a three-year hiatus, as part of a strategic restructuring of services with its parent to adapt to changing demand patterns.
The restructuring sees Scoot resume services in Chennai where it flew from 2016 until Covid. On the other hand, it is withdrawing from Hyderabad and Bengaluru, where Singapore Airlines (SIA) is ramping up services instead. The airline will now operate 44-weekly flights to and from six Indian destinations – Amritsar, Coimbatore, Trichy, Trivandrum and Vizag and Chennai.
“We are pioneering second-tier cities. The choice depends on the cities with the most opportunity and those which also fall under the scope of our air service agreement. The market segmentation of Bengaluru and Hyderabad are different (compared to Chennai) where Singapore Airlines is bringing in wide-body aircraft,” Scoot’s General Manager for India and West Asia, Brian Torrey, told Business Today.
The airline will begin daily services between Singapore and Chennai from November 5, 2023, with its Airbus A320 aircraft. SIA has twice-daily service between the two cities since October 29, 2023. As a result, the SIA Group’s operations between Singapore and Chennai will increase from 17-times weekly to 21-times weekly. “SIA operates both daytime and nighttime service. We are coming in at night, which is the more popular timing,” Torrey said.
Without divulging a number, he added that they have had to increase their pilot and cabin crew strength over the past year as they increased their India focus. “Overnight flights create a little more burden on airlines because pilots need a rest day in between.”
Scoot, which began operations in 2012 and merged with Tigerair Singapore in 2017, has a code-sharing pact with Singapore Airlines. The low-cost carrier has a mandate to increase its destinations in India. Its global fleet of 50 aircraft has Boeing 787 Dreamliner and the single-aisle Airbus 320 family. It also plans to induct Embraer E190-E2 by 2024. In the coming months, the airline also plans to add more destinations beyond Singapore.
Singapore Airlines had informed earlier that Hyderabad, which is now served entirely by SIA’s full-service carrier since October 29, will progressively see flights frequencies between the cities increase from seven-times weekly to 12-times weekly.
In Bengaluru, SIA is operating 14-times weekly instead of the current 16 times a week since October 29. After the changes, SIA will operate 96-weekly flights to and from eight Indian cities, namely Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kochi, Kolkata, and Mumbai.
SOURCE – businesstoday.in / click to read the news at the source
