Germany was never a top-of-mind destination personally. Despite having a good time in Berlin some years back, spending an extended period of time in the land of good beers and Christmas markets in the heart of winter wasn’t exactly my idea of fun…
Singapore Airlines will resume two more fifth freedom flights in November: Frankfurt to New York and Hong Kong to San Francisco Singapore Airlines announced that it will reinstate two fifth freedom services to USA in November 2021, using the four-class Boeing 777-300ERs. The two services will resume SIA’s pre-pandemic connection between Frankfurt and New York as well as Hong Kong and San Francisco. Both these services will originate from Singapore to Frankfurt and Hong Kong respectively, before carrying on to USA. SIA last flew between Hong Kong and San Francisco in February 2020, and between Frankfurt and New York in March 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic was taking hold. Tapping on reopening markets This is the continuation of SIA’s strategy in tapping on regions with progressively relaxed border measures in recent months. SIA has earlier in the year launched intra-Europe flights between Copenhagen and Rome, and also introduced a Taipei – Los Angeles service. In this latest development, SIA is definitely counting on the latest development in USA, who will ease restrictions and accept fully …
In recent months, Singapore Airlines and its low-cost subsidiary Scoot made news with some of its more innovative fifth freedom service within Europe. Singapore Airlines first announced the resumption of its Rome service, but via Copenhagen as a tag-on service. Shortly after, Scoot announced that its original two European destination – Athens in Greece and Berlin in Germany – will be combined into a single service (Singapore-Athens-Berlin) later this month. The move has led many industry observers say that this was a tactic for SIA to tap on the liberalisation of borders and Covid-19 controls within the EU, given that Asia Pacific was still pretty much closed up even as the rest of the world are easing restrictions as vaccination rates are going up. Singapore Airlines’ past fifth freedom flights As a purely international aircraft with no domestic market to tap on, Singapore Airlines has to think creatively to tap on other revenue markets. While Singapore is geographically advantaged when it comes to serving Asia Pacific as a region, it doesn’t have the same edge …
Krisflyer Elite Miles and PPS Club Reserve Values will also get another year’s validity Singapore Airlines announced last week that it will be further extending the status for KrisFlyer and PPS Club members, due to the continued impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting uncertainty over travel plans for its frequent flyers. KrisFlyer and PPS Club status due to expire between March 2021 and February 2022 will now be automatically extended from between March 2022 and February 2023. On top of this, Singapore Airlines has also made additional concessions, such as PPS Reserve Value extension and Elite Miles rollover to provide subsequent tier renewal support. KrisFlyer Elite status extension If your existing KrisFlyer Elite Silver or Elite Gold membership expires between March 2021 and February 2022, your membership will be automatically renewed for another year. This is the case for all members even if you are unable to accrue the usual Elite Miles required, which will be the case for most members this year given the current travel outlook. This is on top of the …
The travel bubble bursts for now, bubble slated for re-start on 6 Dec 2020 Travellers hoping to catch the Singapore-Hong Kong air travel bubble (ATB) will now have to wait another two weeks for it to begin, as Hong Kong is facing a possible ‘fourth wave’ in Covid-19 cases. The ATB was originally slated to commence today (22 Nov), but a decision was made on Saturday afternoon to postpone it by two weeks given the unstable situation in Hong Kong. On Saturday (21 Nov 2020), Hong Kong saw a total of 13 unlinked cases, bringing the seven day average of unlinked cases to 3.86. While this did not reach the mutually agreed threshold of 5, both countries agreed that it would be unwise to commence the ATB at this point. Given the evolving situation in Hong Kong, Secretary Edward Yau and I discussed further this afternoon, and decided that it would be better to defer the launch of the ATB, by two weeks. We will review within two weeks on the new launch date and …
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