Singapore Airlines to restart Airbus A380 fleet under vaccinated travel lane programme

Singapore Airlines will bring its Airbus A380s back into service as regular long-haul routes restart. It joins other international airlines like Qatar Airways, Qantas Airways and British Airways in similar moves.

SIA will reintroduce the aircraft for the Singapore-London Heathrow route on November 18, “earlier than planned”, Airline Weekly reported. Its A380 seats 471 passengers, compared to the A350-900 and Boeing 777-300ERs which currently operate the route and which respectively seat 253 and 264.

The decision comes due to strong demand after Singapore said the United Kingdom would be a part of its vaccinated travel lane programme from October 10. Singapore’s vaccinated travel lane programme allows passengers who have taken both doses of the COVID-19 vaccine and a negative test to enter Singapore without quarantine from October 19.

Governments around the world are easing COVID-19 restrictions, and after the US restarted travel for vaccinated passengers since November last year, bookings have seen triple-digit jumps up to 600 percent at Virgin Atlantic, the report noted. Passenger volumes have caused airlines to resume suspended flights, especially to leisure destinations ahead of the holiday season.

It further said that the outlook for the A380 looked brighter, especially after many airlines put their aircraft in storage due to drastic drop in travel at the start of the pandemic.

BA will bring back 12 A380s on their European routes in November, followed by flights to Miami, Los Angeles and Dubai in December. Qantas will return five out of its 12 A380 aircraft by July 2022 on its Los Angeles and London routes; and Qatar Air will return “several” A380s by November.

On the other hand, Lufthansa and Air France completely retired their fleet of A380 aircraft, and Korean Air also stated plans to retire its fleet within five years.

Globally, data from the Cirium schedule showed the number of A280 flights are “slowly” climbing with 1,605 scheduled in October and 2,237 in November – a slight increase but still 84 percent and 77 percent lower than 2019 numbers, respectively.