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WASHINGTON – Singapore Airlines will resume daily nonstop flights from Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York’s JFK International Airport starting January 18.
Mr. Joey Seow, regional vice president of SIA – Americas, said in a statement that there are “promising signs of recovery in international air travel, particularly with the start of the vaccine vaccination program.”
In an interview, Mr. Seow said that Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s announcement of further easing of travel measures in phase three of Singapore’s reopening, and the change of the World Economic Forum next year to Singapore from Davos, Switzerland, indicates that “Singapore is open for business.”
“The government has taken on the goal of opening Singapore,” he said.
He added that Americans are also allowed to transit Singapore, which was not initially the case. This means that there are more opportunities to catch a flight.
“Step by step, there are all these signs where there is a lot more positivity,” he said, also citing the Singapore government’s discussions with Vietnam over “green lane” travel bubble arrangements.
“As more and more of these travel bubbles and green lanes are traded, business opportunities will emerge. The country is slowly but surely beginning to open up and we see encouraging signs, which are cause for further optimism.”
Before the Covid-19 pandemic, SIA used to operate 57 flights a week between Singapore and the United States.
“When Covid-19 hit us in March, we went down to three a week,” Seow said. “We … we shut down our entire US network and we go out of the Los Angeles service only three times a week.”
Gone are the busy Singapore-New York and Singapore-San Francisco routes.
But this month, SIA began three weekly flights to New York. Starting next month, there will be one every day. And this week, SIA began flying three times a week to San Francisco.
“We used to have (flights) 17 times a week,” Seow told The Straits Times. “Now, (it is) three times a week; but that will increase daily.”
“For Los Angeles, we are now at five a week, we will go up daily in January. There are other services … Seattle (and) Houston, these will come back later.”
All flights will be direct. SIA will operate ultra-long-range Airbus A350-900 aircraft on routes from JFK and San Francisco, in a two-class configuration with 67 business class seats and 94 premium economy seats, according to the statement.
The three-cabin A350-900 LH aircraft will continue to operate from Los Angeles, with seating for 42 business class passengers, 24 premium economy class passengers and 187 economy class passengers.
“All SIA aircraft are equipped with Hepa airflow management systems that remove up to 99.97 percent of bacteria, viruses and particles from the cabin air, which are replaced every two to three minutes,” he says. the notice.
When asked if, with the vaccines now starting to be administered, the airline would require passengers to show some type of vaccination certification, Seow said it depends on the rules of different states.
“We don’t set the rules, but we will let customers know what the rules are and make sure they don’t have difficulties when they arrive at the destination.
“As it is today, we inform passengers of the needs. If a pre-arrival test is needed, we verify when the customer is at their port for check-in.”
SIA’s cargo business that operates out of Los Angeles and Dallas-Fort Worth in Texas is doing “extremely well,” he said. And he added that the e-commerce boom with people trapped at home and making more purchases from online retailers had also helped.
“We get a fair amount of e-commerce traffic … which has been doing very well.”
SIA had also attracted business in the market, as other airlines reduced their waiting passenger flights. “We have maintained our freight frequency. Freight loads in and out of the United States have been very strong,” Seow said.
SIA would also carry vaccines, he said.
According to the statement, SIA “expects significant cargo traffic in each of the expanded services, primarily serving high-value, time-sensitive cargo sectors such as pharmaceuticals, technology and fresh produce, among others.”
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