Singapore Airlines Adds A380 For Daily Flight to Hong Kong

Real World Aviation
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Singapore has recently become one of the many airlines to gear up their services back to Hong Kong with their latest announcement. They join the likes of Emirates and Asiana Airlines with their announcement to add the A380 back to their Hong Kong route. The plan is from December 1st they will be flying the A380 daily from Singapore to Hong Kong.

Other airlines are not as frequent with Asiana running their A380 to Hong Kong twice since Hong Kong reopened its borders and Emirates now running their A380 twice daily from Hong Kong to Dubai via Bangkok. Hopefully Thai soon decide to restart their daily morning service on their A380 from Bangkok to Hong Kong as well!

In news along the same vein, Lufthansa has started selling tickets for next year from Hong Kong to Frankfurt on their B747-8’s and while at the moment there is room for change here, hopefully this urges other carriers to start sending their larger aircraft as well.

Now for some this topic might sound like it is unneeded and others might think the A380’s are being wasted on these shorter routes, however, this is a step in the right direction as more airlines start to come back to Hong Kong after over 2 years of the airport mainly being used for cargo with very little passenger movement. Even though during the pandemic we saw some new faces like Ethiopian beginning operations of a direct route from Hong Kong to Addis Ababa and a second route via Bangkok, as well as a new airline starting in Hong Kong, Greater Bay Airlines, it is always nice to see some familiar faces coming back!

Thank you for reading!

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Glad to see Singapore Airlines using their A380s again for more routes

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Couldn’t agree more, hopefully we can see BA resuming their twice daily flights to Hong Kong again soon, one was on the A380 and the other on the B777-300ER. I remember the days when HK was an A380 magnet.

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IT’S BACK!!!

Glad to see SQ using the A380s again. Hope they keep them around for a while.

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I sincerely hope so, can not wait to see more destinations receiving their A380 service!

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I remember flying the A380 in the SG50 livery to Hong Kong a while back. Glad to see them flying again!

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How was the Singapore Airlines A380? I might look at flying it to Singapore in March. I have only been on the Malaysian A380 and doubt they are similar.

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It was a pretty unique experience for sure. I do not recall the details as I was young at the time however.

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No worries, but thank you for letting me know!

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It’s good to see more A380 flights, specially to Hong Kong, I hope it recovers as one of Asia’s biggest hubs

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I hope so too, thankfully it never lost its Cargo hub status! But I am pleased to see some rarer aircraft throughout COVID for example, Swiss started sending their A340-300 from and Lufthansa was sending their A340-300’s from Frankfurt. ANA was sending their B767’s from Haneda and Narita. We saw lots of very interesting cargo carriers in some very interesting aircraft and the occasional AN124 coming in from where it was before (was always different). But I am happy to see the big boys come back! Juneyao Airlines have just started sending their B787’s again, and that livery is not a bad one for sure!

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Might have been the wrong topic there bud XD

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Yep haha I was probably drunk when I wrote that

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Entirely possible haha, happens to the best of us!

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Interestingly, while Singapore Airlines has opted to add Hong Kong to its A380-800 service, it will be cutting Delhi in November 2022, replacing it with 2 daily services, one with the B787-10 and one with the B777-300ER. I believe this is done to re-accommodate fluctuating demands seen on East Asian destinations that will eventually pick up in the next 6 to 12 months, as well as a limitation in the number of available A380-800 in Singapore Airlines’ fleet.

I am interested in seeing how Singapore Airlines will decide to operate its A380-800 given its limited number despite massive demand for it.

Considering that their current day-to-day operation consists of the following:

SQ322 SIN2345-0555+1LHR 388 D
SQ317 LHR1055-0750+1SIN 388 D

SQ308 SIN0900-1520LHR 388 D
SQ319 LHR2035-1730+1SIN 388 D

SQ231 SIN0045-1150SYD 388 D
SQ222 SYD1610-2120SIN 388 D

SQ026 SIN2355-0645+1FRA 388 D
SQ026 FRA0835-1110JFK 388 D
SQ025 JFK2055-1040+1FRA 388 D
SQ025 FRA1230-0650+1SIN 388 D

SQ424 SIN1900-2210BOM 388 D
SQ423 BOM2340-0740+1SIN 388 D

SQ406 SIN1650-2010DEL 388 D
SQ403 DEL2155-0610+1SIN 388 D

SQ830 SIN0800-1325PVG 388 1
SQ831 PVG1650-2220SIN 388 1

there’s a need for 9 A380-800 at the absolute minimum to be available at any given moment to service these scheduled destinations.

Now take into consideration that Singapore Airlines are in the midst of refurbishing their A380-800 fleet, only 11 out of 15 frames in their fleet have undergone this treatment, meaning that out of a minimum of 9 airframes, 2 remain on hot standby in case there is a need for immediate dispatch due to any maintenance issues.

However, the upshot is that Singapore Airlines are actively working on reintroducing the type sooner than later. 2 of the 4 remaining airframes are in Singapore and are expected to be undergoing cabin refurbishment, which, once completed, bring the total available frames up to 13. With this added capacity, the added service to Hong Kong or even a couple of upgrades on key routes to destinations such as Tokyo and Seoul could even be tabled.

Once all 15 return to active service, I can really only foresee it returning to major destinations within Asia, such as Shanghai, Beijing, Seoul, Osaka and Tokyo, while the only other addition in Europe would realistically be Paris and/or Zürich, perhaps on a rotating basis.

All in all, Singapore Airlines seem to be playing it safe in the time to come. Their staple of the A350-900 (configured in three different variants, with four weight classes) and B777-300ER do seem to be filling to the brim, it seems like their capacity is perfectly matching the demands they’re seeing, as each flight is being dispatched with only a couple of empty seats and a belly full of cargo.

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Indeed and this news of the A380 only increased demand on the Hong Kong route more, so much so that the ticket prices tripled the day after announcing as tickets to Singapore for Christmas are in high demand, this only continued to rise after. Lets compare, originally a Hong Kong to Singapore ticket was like 3k HKD each way in economy, however, in December it is now 16k HKD each way due to demand. I honestly do not see them taking away this A380 service for a while as business and holiday travellers have been needing this! 2 years locked up has evidently been too long for us! But I agree Singapore Airlines might need more!

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I got a question why does singapore a380 do Jfk to frankfurt

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Well it runs Singapore to New York via Frankfurt, obviously the A380 would never be able to make it all that way and to my knowledge their direct flight has no economy, only premium economy and business, so if you wanted to fly to New York and not pay the price of premium economy or business you get catch this flight.

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Because demand for it exists and they have fifth freedom rights on that route, among other transatlantic routes they used to operate, the other, at the moment, being Manchester to Houston. Frankfurt to New York has been running for many years now and stretches back to the pre-pandemic days when it was operated by the A380-800.

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