Singapore Airlines (SIA) is ramping up international competition in Australia with the announcement it will add a fourth daily service to Melbourne and is scaling up services to Adelaide.
From July 1 SIA will operate 28 flights a week from Melbourne and 12 a week from Adelaide. The new services will bring to 121 the number of weekly services operated by SIA between Singapore and Australia. SIA has not hidden from its ambition to gain greater market share in Australia, more so now as it faces the prospect of competition from the combined forces of Qantas and Emirates for Australia-Europe traffic.
SIA is using a range of aircraft on services to Sydney and Melbourne with the A380, two variants of the 777 and A330 used to each, resulting in significant product differential depending on which of the growing number of flights passengers elect to use. The fourth-daily Melbourne service will be operated with an A330.
While announcing a series of route enhancements across its Asian and European networks, SIA stated that from October 2013 it will withdraw nonstop services from Singapore to Los Angeles and Newark. LA will be served one-stop via Tokyo while New York (Newark) will operate via Frankfurt. The changes are the result of the withdrawal of the airline’s A340-500s.
