SIA ANNOUNCES MORE SERVICE CUTS

Chicago Temporarily Suspended; Fewer Flights To Other US Cities

In view of the present market conditions coupled with the approach of the off-peak Northern Winter season, Singapore Airlines (SIA) has announced further schedule changes to rationalize its operations on the United States and Japan routes to better match expected demand.

The three-times-weekly Singapore-Amsterdam-Chicago service, launched on 1 August this year, will be suspended from 13 January 2002 until the end of April 2002. The service is expected to resume on 1 May, 2002. In addition, three of the daily Singapore-Frankfurt-New York (JFK International) services will be suspended during the same period. This follows an earlier reduction in frequency on the Singapore-Amsterdam-New York (Newark) service, from four times a week to three, which took effect at the end of October.

With these changes, SIA will operate seven transatlantic services a week, all to New York (four to JFK International and three to Newark) for the period 13 Jan 2002 to end April 2002. From the beginning of May 2002, SIA plans to revert to its original level of operation.

On transpacific routes, SIA’s Singapore-Taipei-Los Angeles service will be cut from seven to five per week, as will the Singapore-Seoul-San Francisco service. The current daily Singapore-Hong Kong-San Francisco, daily Singapore-Tokyo-Los Angeles and the thrice-weekly Singapore-Seoul-Vancouver services will remain unchanged.

SIA’s transpacific services will thus be reduced from thirty-one to twenty-seven per week. All cuts will take effect on 13 January and extend until the end of March 2002. From the beginning of April 2002, SIA plans to revert to its original level of operation.

In total, SIA’s combined seating capacity to the United States will be cut by around 20 per cent for the period 13 January 2002 to 30 April 2002. SIA will be monitoring the market situation closely, and if necessary, adjust the capacity accordingly to meet market demands.

In addition to the reductions on SIA’s services to the US, operations to Japan will be scaled back. Specifically, weekly frequencies to Osaka will be reduced from 20 to 15, Nagoya from seven to six, Fukuoka from seven to five and Hiroshima from four to two. All changes will take effect from 13 January 2002, with the exception of Osaka, which will undergo a staggered reduction in frequency from 13 November 2001. In total, SIA’s frequencies to Japan will be reduced from 55 to 47 per week, resulting in a combined weekly seating capacity reduction of around 13 per cent for the period 13 January 2002 to 30 April 2002.

Elsewhere, weekly services to Taipei will be reduced from 22 to 18, with effect from 13 November 2001. In addition, SIA’s services to Perth will be reduced from 21 to 18 a week during the period 3 January 2002 to 30 March 2003.

To cater to the peak demand to Australia and New Zealand in the month of December 2001, SIA will be operating a total of 25 extra flights.

In an unrelated move, SIA will discontinue the e-mail service that was introduced on one of its aircraft in April this year to gauge customer interest. The decision was taken after Tenzing, the owner of the software, said it would be reviewing its development plans in light of the prevailing economic situation.