Just weeks after Singapore Airlines (SIA) said it had to postpone plans for a Singapore-Jakarta-Sydney service owing to runway maintenance works at Jakarta airport, the carrier has now been told by the Indonesian authorities to also cut existing flights to Jakarta. The Indonesian authorities gave the same reason of runway works.

Following the latest development, SIA said yesterday that it will cut five Singapore-Jakarta flights a week, from Dec 1. The airline has been operating 63 flights a week to and from Jakarta since July 2013. The services to be axed are SQ962 and SQ963 on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, SIA said.

The airline apologised to customers for the inconvenience, and said it will progressively contact those affected to put them on other flights.

Responding to media queries, the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) said it was aware of SIA's plans to drop the flights. "CAAS hopes the runway maintenance works will be completed expeditiously and that the impact on airlines will be fairly distributed," a spokesman said. CAAS said it also hopes the Indonesian civil aviation authorities will allow SIA to resume all 63 weekly services to Jakarta as soon as possible.

SIA had intended to launch a thrice-weekly Singapore-Jakarta-Sydney service on Nov 23, but those plans have now been postponed, with no new date set.

It is not clear how long the works will last at Soekarno-Hatta Airport and how many other airlines are affected. A spokesman for Indonesian national carrier Garuda Indonesia, responding to The Straits Times' queries yesterday, said its flights were not affected.

• Additional reporting by Wahyudi Soeriaatmadja

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