Friday 24 June 2016

Singapore Airlines launches direct flight to San Francisco on 23 October 2016 after cancelling flights to Sao Paulo

Report by : Gan Yung Chyan
                   / KUCINTA SETIA
Distributed to All Press & Travel Professionals



Due to lower passenger loads than 2015 and the Zika epidemic in South America, Singapore Airlines is suspending thrice-weekly flights to Sao Paulo, Brazil via Barcelona from 21 October 2016 and is in preparation for its direct scheduled flight from Singapore to San Francisco which will be launched on 23 October 2016. The airline will continue to operate direct flights to Barcelona where passengers can connect to Iberia's flights to Sao Paulo and elsewhere in South America. 

According to Singapore Airlines' web-site, the inaugural scheduled flight service to San Francisco from Singapore operated by its Airbus A350-900 aircraft under SQ32, the longest flight before the direct New York flight in 2018, is planned to take off at 8.30 am on 23 October. It arrives in San Francisco at 9.15 am on 24 October before leaving San Francisco for Singapore at 10.45 am and touching down in Singapore at 6.40 pm on 25 October under flight SQ31.  

With the launch of direct flights to San Francisco, Singapore Airlines has adjusted flights to Los Angeles. One of the outbound daily flights to Los Angeles will transit in Seoul-Incheon while the other daily transit flight service to Los Angeles via Tokyo-Narita will continue. 

Despite the on-line flight schedules, experts advise that it is best to be prudent from the perspective of flight punctuality.  

Aviation watchdog web-site CARNOC Daily remarked that Singapore Airlines' outgoing flights to San Francisco may begin between 2.35 pm and 5.45 pm weeks after as the route is subject to aircraft deployment timing, air traffic flow restrictions and changes in market demand. Therefore the flight schedules are not fixed and passengers are advised to monitor flight departure adjustments in the premises of flight punctuality. 

Singapore Airlines is ranked fifth on the "List of Most Punctual Asian Airlines" (95.32% punctual, i.e. seventeenth on the "List of Most Punctual International Airlines") for the month of May 2016 according to the Civil Aviation Data Analysis (CADAS) system released by VariFlight. Jetstar Asia Airways is ranked twenty-second (94.75% punctual) while Singapore Airlines' regional subsidiary SilkAir is ranked thirty-seventh (93.35% punctual) on the same "List of Most Punctual International Airlines". Punctuality data for Tigerair Singapore and Scoot are not available. 

According to CADAS, the most punctual international airline for the month of May 2016 is Hawaiian Airlines  (98.17% punctual), followed by Japan Airlines (97.68% punctual) and Belavia Belarusian Airlines (97.50% punctual).

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