SINGAPORE - Singapore Airlines’ (SIA) budget arm Scoot will restore China flights to more than half of pre-pandemic levels by June.
The airline said on Wednesday it will progressively increase its flights to China from the current 14 a week to 57.
Before the pandemic, Scoot operated 107 weekly flights to China, said a spokesman.
The restoration of flights comes after China reopened its borders significantly in January as it scrapped quarantine measures for overseas arrivals after nearly three years of strict pandemic restrictions.
Before Covid-19 hit, China was the world’s largest source of outbound tourists, who took 170 million trips and contributed US$253 billion (S$340 billion) to the global economy in 2019.
Earlier this week, Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan stressed Singapore’s desire to see flights and other connections return to how they were before the pandemic.
On his first trip to China since it relaxed its zero-Covid-19 policy, Dr Balakrishnan told his Chinese counterpart Qin Gang that there used to be 400 flights a week linking Singapore and China, while there are just 56 now.
In January, the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) said it expects Chinese tourist arrivals in 2023 to be 30 per cent to 60 per cent of pre-Covid-19 numbers of about 3.6 million visitors a year.
However, this will largely depend on the speed at which China allows outbound travel, as well as the pace at which flights between Singapore and China resume, said STB’s assistant chief executive of international group Juliana Kua.
From now until March 25, Scoot will be increasing the number of flights to seven of its eight destinations in China, which include Guangzhou and Nanjing, from 14 flights a week to 26.
National carrier SIA will also increase its weekly flights to China, said its spokesman in response to The Straits Times’ query.
From March, SIA will operate seven weekly flights to Beijing as well as Guangzhou, up from the current three weekly flights to each destination.
It will also progressively operate 14 weekly flights to Shanghai, up from the current four.
In April, Scoot will also resume flights to places like Xi’an and Haikou, bringing its total number of weekly flights to China to 42.
SIA will also operate 29 weekly flights to China from April, bringing the total number of weekly flights for both airlines to 71.
Travellers can also travel to Nanning and Shenyang with Scoot in May. By June, the carrier will offer 57 weekly flights to China.
However, to adjust its capacity in response to demand, the SIA Group said in its third-quarter earnings report released on Tuesday that Scoot will suspend services to Gold Coast from July and SIA will suspend services to Vancouver from October.
