Airliners-India.com

karatecatman · Guest

www.thehindubusinessline.com/2007/03/23/stories/2007032301652100.htm
Singapore Air vying for 5 a.m. Chennai slot
M. Ramesh

Will help passengers save on time to catch connecting flights

Chennai March 22
Singapore Airlines, which is hopeful of securing the rights for a second Chennai-Singapore flight, prefers to slot the departure from Chennai at 5 a.m., Mr Bharat Mahadevan, Manager, Southern India, of the airline, told Business Line recently.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation has approved rights for one more Chennai-Singapore flight to a Singapore-based carrier. It is now up to the Government of Singapore to decide which of its airlines will get the rights.

It is understood from industry sources that the two major contenders for the rights are Singapore Airlines and Tiger, the low-cost airline in which both the Singapore Government as well as Singapore Airlines have stakes.

The sources said that it is possible that the two carriers may be asked to share the rights, flying on different days of the week.
Load capacity

Mr Mahadevan said that the load from Chennai was picking up despite the fact that Singapore Airlines has introduced direct flights to the island country from Bangalore and Hyderabad.

Singapore Airlines operates on this segment a Boeing 777-300, which can accommodate 332 passengers.

According to Mr Mahadevan, the economy class runs full while the load is 95 per cent on the overall. Of the 332 seats in Boeing 777-300, 265 are economy class and the rest business and first classes.

Easy connectivity

He said that Singapore Airlines continued to be a leader on this route, despite other despite other airlines such as Jet and Indian being comparatively cheaper, mainly because Singapore Airlines could carry passengers to destinations in other countries — mainly the US, Australia and China.

Which is why, a 5 a.m. departure from Chennai would make sense, Mr Mahadevan said.

The flight would reach Singapore at noon local time and passengers would not have to wait for long to catch their connecting flights to the US.

Nimish

BigTom · Member Joined: 21 Mar 2007 Posts: 271 Location: Dubai, UAE

What kind of loads are IC and 9W averaging on MAA-SIN? And on the average how much cheaper are they than SQ? Don't AI fly MAA-SIN too?

Cheers

karatecatman · Guest

Not sure about 9W which operates a 737. Plan is now to use the Airbus A330.

IA has an afternoon A320 departure at 1325 hrs which is about 85% load and an A300 at 0055 hrs which is again almost a full load. This flight is very popular with the labour traffic that terminates at Singapore though there are quite a few (family traffic) who use it to connect to the US (West Coast mainly).

Air India used to operate the A310 but has withdrawn its services. It has been replaced by Air India Express and its 737-800. After the response, AIX is now looking to make it a double daily flight.

G-BYGB · Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2007 12:31 am Post subject:

S2 also operates flights to SIN from MAA.
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G-BYGB · Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2007 12:34 am Post subject:

If the SQ flights from MAA-SIN are full daily then why are'nt they upgrading it to B747-400.It'll be good for the airline photographers.
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Megatop · Member Joined: 14 Feb 2007 Posts: 257 Location: Bangalore

Worthy of mention, BLR's allocation for extra sorties starts this Oct. 30, SQ will have big time capacity infusions out of south for the new northern winter season.

MAA manages to fill in economy, while front end loads on flights to BLR are always better than MAA/HYD resulting in more expensive fares from BLR.

G-BYGB,

s2 doesnt fly sin-maa.

the 744s are all equipped with sky suites eligible for longhaul flights & being sold at a premium. i dont think it sells well on a 4 hr flight. all previous 744 routes to BKK, HKG are now with the 773.

Nimish · Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2007 10:56 am Post subject:

Megatop · Member Joined: 14 Feb 2007 Posts: 257 Location: Bangalore

nimish,

no confirmation from SQ though, but the Singapore-India bilateral says so.

abt the F-J loads, its from the res. desk at SIN. for instance, BLR-SIN is overbooked in all classes on fridays while SIN-BLR is soldout on all sundays.

contrast this with the rare overbooking for MAA in F-J, but full Y & the extremely rare near full flight for HYD. hard to conceive a full F cabin from MAA/HYD unlike BLR !

very tough to secure a BLR-SFO quota ticket in F-J for the next 2-3 weeks.

VABBy · Member Joined: 19 Dec 2006 Posts: 823 Location: DEL

Are they doing even better than DELHI??? Hw are the loads on SQ407/408 that they vieing for a capacity increase on chennai first rather than going in for DEL...

Noo S2 doesnt operate to SIN from MAA they are quite DEL centric thought they have closed down their DEL-CMB-MLE flight from 10March now they are back to square one ie MAA-CMB flight while the MLE is being operated from TRV. They were suppose to launch their KUL operations bt the same havent been launched yet.....
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Megatop · Member Joined: 14 Feb 2007 Posts: 257 Location: Bangalore

dear vabby,

chennai goes first becoz delhi gets the increases only in summer 2008 & blr increases only in oct 2007 whereas maa should have gone 3/week by now, according to the deal & daily eff. oct 30.

looks like Sq prefers to be more conservative. look at what happened to the 5th daily flight to pvg(shangai), it never took off even after an official press release.

outbound from delhi is full while incoming is ok.

blr should take a while to match up with delhi, but is way ahead of hyd & considerably more revenue generating than maa.

the blr biz traffic is lucrative for SQ, LH, BA, AF, EK, TG, but definitely not for MH, AI & IC which heavily rely on maa for the vfr market.

s2 is drab & is perceived to die first, should there be a shakeout in the indian aviation industry, the lesser said the better.

Nimish · Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2007 5:19 pm Post subject:

B772 · Member Joined: 21 Jan 2007 Posts: 167

What about CCU. SQ have very openly announced in the past to increase frequency of their 4 times a week flight.

Megatop · Member Joined: 14 Feb 2007 Posts: 257 Location: Bangalore

dear 772,

no idea abt. CCU, there have been news of both BA & SQ adding flights but no firming up there. we need to wait & c.

regards the nonstops from indian carriers, im apprehensive as sustainability is an issue as is with the likes of TG & SQ nonstops. even though the loads are good, the yields arent.

and kingfisher will charge the earth for a blr-sfo nonstop.