Singapore Airlines (SQ, Singapore Changi) plans to begin revenue operations of its six B737-8s, taken over from merged subsidiary SilkAir, "in the coming weeks", the carrier announced on November 16, 2021.
The aircraft had been operated by SilkAir before the type’s global grounding in March 2019. In 2020, all six were ferried for storage in Alice Springs in Australia. Starting on December 30, 2020, they were repositioned back to Singapore Changi for cabin refurbishment and repainting and are currently parked at Singapore Changi, awaiting induction into service.
Singapore Airlines said the jets, now equipped with 154 passenger seats including ten lie-flat seats in business class, will operate regional flights to Bandar Seri Begawan, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Maldives, Nepal, and Thailand, subject to regulatory approvals. SIA will release details concerning the schedule shortly.
Singapore Airlines spent SGD230 million Singaporean dollars (USD170 million) on the development, design, and refurbishment of the B737 MAX 8 cabins. In its half-yearly financial presentation, Singapore Airlines Group said it would take another eight MAX by the end of March 2022, although it would also deploy only one of them into service in that timeframe.
Separately, the holding has confirmed in its quarterly financial report that Singapore Airlines retired its last A330-300 during the quarter that ended on September 30, 2021.
The ch-aviation fleets advanced module shows that the airline’s two last A330s to leave Singapore Changi on return to their lessor were 9V-SSH (msn 1648) and 9V-SSI (msn 1666). Although the aircraft had been parked at Singapore Changi airport since March 28, 2020, and December 14, 2019, SIA only ferried them to Teruel in September/October, Flightradar24 ADS-B data shows. The aircraft are just over six years of age and were operated by Singapore Airlines for less than five years. Both are owned Crianza Aviation, managed by EastMerchant Capital, and remain parked at the Spanish airport.
Singapore Airlines operated thirty-four A330-300s over the course of its history, the ch-aviation fleets history module shows. It never operated any A330-200s. The -300s were predominantly used on regional routes.
Singapore Airlines also plans to take five more B787-10s until March 2022 (in addition to 15 already in its fleet) and two more A350-900s (on top of 49 already operated).
Despite 73% year-on-year growth in revenue during the April-September 2021 period, Singapore Airlines remained in the red, posting a SGD837 million (USD617 million) net loss.
Qatar Airways (QR, Doha Hamad Int’l) will continue to retire its A380-800s as soon as feasible, seeing no long-term future for the giant jet in its fleet, according to Group Chief Executive Officer Akbar Al Baker.
Speaking to Simple Flying, he reiterated he still considered the A380 his “biggest mistake”.
Al Baker’s comments coincided with several airlines returning the A380 to service following a massive travel rebound this summer and slot capacity constraints at major airports. There is also a lack of wide-body capacity amid production issues with the new A350, an issue that has escalated into a USD1 billion legal battle between Qatar Airways and Airbus.
However, Al Baker said spare parts for A380s were challenging to get. “Out of the eight that we commissioned to fly, we only fly seven. We keep one spare because today, you have difficulty getting spares for them because of the supply chain. [Airbus] stopped producing them, so there is no more incentive to make spares.”
“Due to the grounding of the A350s…
Aircalin (SB, Nouméa La Tontouta) is in discussions about adding a third A330-900, which would allow it to launch in-house services to Paris CDG, Chief Executive Didier Tappero told the Aviation Week Network.
“We are working with Airbus to eventually order a third widebody aircraft. We want to have the capacity to fly Paris to Nouméa La Tontouta, but it is still a project we have to work on,” Tappero said.
The New Caledonian carrier currently relies on its codeshare and interline agreements to connect the French collectivity in the Pacific Ocean with the metropole. It operates two A330-900s, which it deploys to Papeete, Sydney Kingsford Smith, and Tokyo Narita, and has just added Singapore Changi to its network. It has a codeshare agreement with Air France on routes from Paris CDG to Narita and Singapore, and an interline agreement with Singapore Airlines on the Singapore-Paris route.
Tappero said Aircalin was hopeful that Singapore would become an important connecting hub. The airline currently serves the…
Uzbekistan’s civil aviation authority (O’zaviatsiya Agentligi) has emphatically denied rumours that have been spreading online about the emergence of a new airline in the country by the name of Panorama Airways (Tashkent Islam Karimov). Online sources had claimed that two A320-200s were already in Tashkent undergoing pre-delivery maintenance while an ex-Singapore Airlines B777-300 – ER-77739 (msn 32327) – was being prepared in Bishkek.
“Reports in the mass media about the creation of a new airline in Uzbekistan, Panorama Airways, and its imminent performance of flights on Airbus A320 and Boeing B777 aircraft is not true,” the authority said on June 29.
It stressed that “in order to carry out any activities related to the use of aircraft in civil aviation, the requirements of Article 44 of the Air Code of the Republic of Uzbekistan and [regulations] approved by the Cabinet of Ministers, any legal entity or individual must obtain an air operator’s certificate from O’zaviatsiya Agentligi in the prescribed manner.”
“The organisation calling itself Panorama Airways has not…
Jakarta has confirmed Garuda Indonesia (GA, Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta) free of bankruptcy, prompting the Indonesian government to immediately start the search for new investors, deputy minister for state-owned enterprises Kartika Wirjoatmodjo told reporters. The ministry has been in talks with several foreign airlines and financial investors, he added.
Such investors will have the resources to aid the flag carrier’s new business plan, the minister said after the airline managed to gain creditor support to restructure its IDR142 trillion rupiah (USD9.5 billion) worth of liabilities, the Indonesian news agency Antara reported Kartika as saying. Garuda has managed to halve this debt, through court-led negotiations and in out-of-court settlements, to USD5.1 billion, he said.
Garuda Indonesia has also cut aircraft leasing costs in negotiations that began more than two years ago. To accommodate new shareholders, the government said it was prepared to cut its shareholding to no less than 51%, inject a further IDR7.5 trillion (USD500 million) into Garuda’s capital this year, and conduct a rights offering in the fourth quarter to raise additional cash.
Among the…
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