India holds tremendous growth opportunities for business and leisure travel for Singapore Airlines, stated G. M. Toh, General Manager – India, SIA. “Indian visitors comprise of different segments of the market such as corporate traffic, visit friends and relatives (VFR), migrants, leisure, incentives, MICE, students and special interest groups. Moreover, India offers a rich heritage and diverse cultures that also entices the inbound traveller. Hence, Singapore Airlines and our subsidiaries are looking at increasing flights to Delhi, Hyderabad and Chennai once Singapore government works out allotment of India seats.”
SIA currently operates in six cities including Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai. The carrier already increased its services to Mumbai to 21 times per week, in Hyderabad to nine times a week and Ahmedabad services to three times weekly due to surge in demand. SIA, along with its full-service regional arm SilkAir, offers 98 flights weekly from 11 cities in India. “SIA, SilkAir and low-cost carrier affiliate Tiger Airways are utilising over 70 per cent of capacity between India and Singapore. The three carriers currently provide around 29,000 one-way weekly seats to India. Last month, India has revised its bilateral air services agreement (ASA) with Singapore which allowed increase of 2,160 seats per week, about 10 per cent, for the Singapore-based carriers,” Toh said adding that SIA won’t be able to increase any flights to Mumbai, which is second biggest market for the carrier, as it is already utilising maximum permitted seats from the city.
Speaking on Changi Airport attracting Indian traffic, Toh said, “The Changi Airport proves to be a convenient hub and our networks offer seamless connectivity to major destinations of the world. Changi Airport has also upped its promotional activities in emerging destinations namely India and has positioned itself as a tourist attraction.”
In keeping up with their endeavour to provide the best inflight services, SIA recently announced a product upgrade on the daily morning flights between Mumbai and Singapore. “This is a part of a larger global investment of US$95 million to refit 10 Boeing 777-200ER aircraft with new long-haul cabin products. We are also making a US$20 million investment to develop new SilverKris Lounges over the next five years. This is in addition to recent investments in lounges including the new SilverKris Lounge at Delhi International Airport.
At present there are 216 weekly flights between India and Singapore.
