SIA to restart non-stop flights between Singapore and US

Singapore Air will take delivery of an ultra-long range version of Airbus Group SE’s A350 in 2018 for the nonstop service, the carrier said in an e-mailed statement Tuesday.

Under an amendment to the carrier’s existing order for 63 A350-900s, seven of the aircraft will now be delivered with an Ultra-Long Range capability for flights of up to 19 hours. The airline was using a 100-seat Airbus A340-500.

Singapore Airlines operated the route from Singapore to New York until 2013, but stopped the service because of its inefficiency.

SIA has recently found it harder to make money on services between Singapore and Europe amid tepid economic growth in the continent and tough competition, leaving it dependent on intra-Asian traffic to a greater degree than its executives would have preferred, say sources familiar with the airline’s thinking. The latter has a range of up to 8,700nm.

In addition to the 63 A350-900s for which SIA has placed firm orders, the carrier holds purchase options for 20 more. Singapore Airlines is the largest customer for the A350 XWB in East Asia, with deliveries of its 67 aircraft now on order starting in the first quarter of 2016.

Singapore Airlines has announced Amsterdam will be the inaugural destination for its forthcoming A350 in April next year.

Mr Lee Wen Fen, senior vice-president, marketing planning, said: “We are very much looking forward to the arrival of the new A-350s, which will be fitted with our newest-generation cabin products, providing more comfort to our customers”.

The A350-900ULR “will ‎include a modified fuel system to increase the fuel carrying capacity, an increase in Maximum Take-Off Weight, plus aerodynamic improvements, enabling service to the US West Coast, as well as to New York”, Airbus said in a statement. The airline flies to Houston via Moscow, San Francisco via Seoul and Hong Kong, and Los Angeles via Narita.

SIA’s only services to the United Sates go via other hubs.