Singapore Airlines

[ethanegcc]

Video of Sheldon Hee talking about the SQ 359 launch at MAN. Encouraging words also about Houston.

 

[ethanegcc]

https://twitter.com/MelBarhamITV - some great pics and videos from a Granada news reporter.

It seems granada reports are running an interview with Sheldon Hee and the first A350 arrival in Manchester.

 

[Dobbo]

Weekend in Houston!

Good to see this come together, I'm sure SQ are hoping for a similar "bounce" effect to that reported by Emirates when they introduce the A380.

 

[Land23R]

Good for Granada. I don't suppose BBC's North West Today made much of it, if at all. I didn't see it so apologies if they did.

 

[Land23R]

And the M.E.N. has the story:

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co...ster-airport-singapore-airlines-a350-12471324

 

[ethanegcc]

Preview to the trip report on 359 business class between IAH and MAN (the full one is coming apparently):
http://monkeymiles.boardingarea.com...man-iah/#_ga=1.31541630.1769807825.1476113054

 

[ethanegcc]

Might also be of interest; menu on the Manchester to Houston sector

 

[ethanegcc]

View attachment 4454

 

[ethanegcc]

Some encouraging talk from PPRuNe, from one user saying 'not to worry about the figures and that 'the route is sustained by MAN, with a traffic split roughly 50% SIN-MAN and vv, 25% MAN-IAH and vv, and just about 25% between SIN-IAH and vv.'

 

[Philbky]

I am a regular visitor to Houston, with my daughter, son in law and grandchildren living there. The previous Singapore operation over Moscow saw thin traffic after oil related traffic suffered in the light of sanctions. Even prior to 2014 the route was seen as very much a two stage operation. The sector between Singapore and Moscow was basically for financiers, traders and tourists. That between Moscow and Houston was mainly oil related and had been declining long before sanctions as Houston based oil companies reduced their involvement in the Russian oil business. It wass in 2013 that I first heard rumours of Moscow being pulled and later in the year Manchester was first mentioned as an alternative.

The route is still a two part operation with through passengers from Singapore to destinations in the US south and southwest being steered to services over Los Angeles with a large number of connections and code shares offered. The airline has built a number of connections out of Houston and given that the flight is not daily these are primarily aimed at Manchester passengers, pasengers ex Singapore having a much wider choice of flights and connections over LAX. Texas is not the most inspiring tourist destination with places of interest separated by long distances. The passenger growth on this flight will come from the northwest's oil and technology sectors and by building tourist traffic with connections to places such as New Orleans, Dallas, San Antonio, Albuqueque and Oklahoma.

 

[Dobbo]

Certainly helps support the MAN-SIN sector. Hopefully get it back to daily (at least MAN-SIN) before too long and grow from there. I'd love a night departure slot for Australasia connections at SIN!

 

[User001]

Just had a quick run up to the airport with the little one as it's a week off, and it still makes me proud of this little airport to see not 1 but 2 SQ tails in the line up of T2, even after all this time, it's just great.

 

[Dobbo]

SQ clearly like MAN, and I hope they can build in a similar vein to CX. Daily SQ51/52 is the next stop, so let's see where they go from here.

 

[ethanegcc]

I feel like Cathay and Singapore to MAN are what AI is to BHX. Committed to the market and long serving in one way or another.

 

[Dobbo]

Slight snippet from someone well placed: SQ supposedly having to offload passengers on a SIN - MAN sector. Conclusion being it would do fine as a terminator.

 

[EGCC_MAN]

I have booked three itineraries from MAN to Australia / New Zealand over the last couple of days. There is a family wedding coming up in Sydney, and relatives delegate me to organise all the flight arrangements for them! One of these involves SIA [MAN-SIN-SYD ; PER-SIN-MAN]. What surprised me was how heavily booked those two MAN sectors already are ... the SIN-MAN service in particular (early Dec) had very few Y seats left to choose from, and no window-seats unoccupied at all. The MAN-SIN had slightly more availability but the booked numbers are again very impressive for this far ahead (Nov).

Meanwhile, touching on discussions in another thread, another itinerary required inclusion of CHC (Christchurch NZ) and PER as well as SYD for tagged-on visits to other friends. Only EMIRATES could accommodate this itinerary on one inclusive fare, the Australian domestic connections with (codeshare partner) QANTAS and the UAE CHC-SYD sector clinching this. No other in-house airline booking system could offer a solution.

Out of interest, the Emirates itinerary MAN-DXB-BKK-SYD-CHC-SYD-PER-DXB-MAN came in at £1094. Pretty good I thought. The four SIA sectors above came to £813.64. Further flights supporting this itinerary were booked on a standalone basis and paid separately. Around a month ago I also organised a Cathay Pacific itinerary to include HKG stopovers [MAN-HKG-SYD-HKG-MAN] for two other family members. I forget the exact figure but this came in at around £690 each. Obviously, there was some advantage in being able to make this booking earlier due to their holiday dates having already been confirmed.

There are some good deals out there ... well worth a look. But if New Zealand is part of a combined journey including Australia, Emirates are out on their own.

One other thought reference that article linked in another thread [QANTAS working towards LHR-SYD non-stop flights]. I don't care what range-extending technology they come up with. They can keep them. And if in some alternate reality they were to offer MAN-SYD non-stop they can keep that too. I just wouldn't contemplate booking such a long flight for myself ever and I would never recommend it to family or friends ... not ever. And QANTAS believe they'll be able to charge a premium for this? They'd have to pay me to go on it and I'd have to be dragged on kicking and screaming even then. Why do they suppose that large volumes of pax desire to ignore and overfly all the wonderful en route stopover options and instead put themselves through 24 hours of unrelenting claustrophobic DVT-inducing torture? If they're banking on us all choosing to book that they could be in for a big shock. It is reminiscent of the mobile phone manufacturers who made phones smaller and smaller simply because technology advances allowed them to keep doing that ... eventually customers with a bit of common sense started saying: "Hang on! We want a bigger screen and a handset which is comfortable to hold!"

 

[ethanegcc]

I have booked three itineraries from MAN to Australia / New Zealand over the last couple of days. There is a family wedding coming up in Sydney, and relatives delegate me to organise all the flight arrangements for them! One of these involves SIA [MAN-SIN-SYD ; PER-SIN-MAN]. What surprised me was how heavily booked those two MAN sectors already are ... the SIN-MAN service in particular (early Dec) had very few Y seats left to choose from, and no window-seats unoccupied at all. The MAN-SIN had slightly more availability but the booked numbers are again very impressive for this far ahead (Nov).

Meanwhile, touching on discussions in another thread, another itinerary required inclusion of CHC (Christchurch NZ) and PER as well as SYD for tagged-on visits to other friends. Only EMIRATES could accommodate this itinerary on one inclusive fare, the Australian domestic connections with (codeshare partner) QANTAS and the UAE CHC-SYD sector clinching this. No other in-house airline booking system could offer a solution.

Out of interest, the Emirates itinerary MAN-DXB-BKK-SYD-CHC-SYD-PER-DXB-MAN came in at £1094. Pretty good I thought. The four SIA sectors above came to £813.64. Further flights supporting this itinerary were booked on a standalone basis and paid separately. Around a month ago I also organised a Cathay Pacific itinerary to include HKG stopovers [MAN-HKG-SYD-HKG-MAN] for two other family members. I forget the exact figure but this came in at around £690 each. Obviously, there was some advantage in being able to make this booking earlier due to their holiday dates having already been confirmed.

There are some good deals out there ... well worth a look. But if New Zealand is part of a combined journey including Australia, Emirates are out on their own.

One other thought reference that article linked in another thread [QANTAS working towards LHR-SYD non-stop flights]. I don't care what range-extending technology they come up with. They can keep them. And if in some alternate reality they were to offer MAN-SYD non-stop they can keep that too. I just wouldn't contemplate booking such a long flight for myself ever and I would never recommend it to family or friends ... not ever. And QANTAS believe they'll be able to charge a premium for this? They'd have to pay me to go on it and I'd have to be dragged on kicking and screaming even then. Why do they suppose that large volumes of pax desire to ignore and overfly all the wonderful en route stopover options and instead put themselves through 24 hours of unrelenting claustrophobic DVT-inducing torture? If they're banking on us all choosing to book that they could be in for a big shock. It is reminiscent of the mobile phone manufacturers who made phones smaller and smaller simply because technology advances allowed them to keep doing that ... eventually customers with a bit of common sense started saying: "Hang on! We want a bigger screen and a handset which is comfortable to hold!"

When looking at Australasia, prices and quality can not be beaten on Singapore Airlines in my experience. I think that they have dropped the geographically illogical connections to the far east and northern Asia and rather kept to the forte, with connections to Australia, Indonesia and New Zealand. This model could work very well for them.

I can't help but think a codeshare would do wonders with United, though, on the MAN-IAH sector

 

[Coathanger16]

One other thought reference that article linked in another thread [QANTAS working towards LHR-SYD non-stop flights]. I don't care what range-extending technology they come up with. They can keep them. And if in some alternate reality they were to offer MAN-SYD non-stop they can keep that too. I just wouldn't contemplate booking such a long flight for myself ever and I would never recommend it to family or friends ... not ever. And QANTAS believe they'll be able to charge a premium for this? They'd have to pay me to go on it and I'd have to be dragged on kicking and screaming even then. Why do they suppose that large volumes of pax desire to ignore and overfly all the wonderful en route stopover options and instead put themselves through 24 hours of unrelenting claustrophobic DVT-inducing torture? If they're banking on us all choosing to book that they could be in for a big shock. It is reminiscent of the mobile phone manufacturers who made phones smaller and smaller simply because technology advances allowed them to keep doing that ... eventually customers with a bit of common sense started saying: "Hang on! We want a bigger screen and a handset which is comfortable to hold!"

I may be wrong, but I'd expect Qantas to operate any potential non-stop SYD-LON/EUR flight in a premium dense config (i.e. mostly business and premium economy + maybe first) similar to how SIA are planning on operating their SIN-EWR A350 flights.

As for being on an aircraft that long, its different for different people. If my trip was planned to include just Australia, I'd probably opt for the non-stop flight. However, if I wasn't constrained in my time for the trip, I might choose to have a stopover for a day or two in Hong Kong or Singapore. Having flown to Australia before, leaving on Monday night and not arriving till Wednesday morning, I'd certainly be happy with getting a few hours back.

 

[ethanegcc]

Singapore

Looking at the seatmap for tomorrow's SIN flight: no economy tickets are available, only premium economy of which the cabin has just three seats available. In Business class, two out of 44 seats available.

 

[owebee1968]

I have booked three itineraries from MAN to Australia / New Zealand over the last couple of days. There is a family wedding coming up in Sydney, and relatives delegate me to organise all the flight arrangements for them! One of these involves SIA [MAN-SIN-SYD ; PER-SIN-MAN]. What surprised me was how heavily booked those two MAN sectors already are ... the SIN-MAN service in particular (early Dec) had very few Y seats left to choose from, and no window-seats unoccupied at all. The MAN-SIN had slightly more availability but the booked numbers are again very impressive for this far ahead (Nov).

Meanwhile, touching on discussions in another thread, another itinerary required inclusion of CHC (Christchurch NZ) and PER as well as SYD for tagged-on visits to other friends. Only EMIRATES could accommodate this itinerary on one inclusive fare, the Australian domestic connections with (codeshare partner) QANTAS and the UAE CHC-SYD sector clinching this. No other in-house airline booking system could offer a solution.

Out of interest, the Emirates itinerary MAN-DXB-BKK-SYD-CHC-SYD-PER-DXB-MAN came in at £1094. Pretty good I thought. The four SIA sectors above came to £813.64. Further flights supporting this itinerary were booked on a standalone basis and paid separately. Around a month ago I also organised a Cathay Pacific itinerary to include HKG stopovers [MAN-HKG-SYD-HKG-MAN] for two other family members. I forget the exact figure but this came in at around £690 each. Obviously, there was some advantage in being able to make this booking earlier due to their holiday dates having already been confirmed.

There are some good deals out there ... well worth a look. But if New Zealand is part of a combined journey including Australia, Emirates are out on their own.

One other thought reference that article linked in another thread [QANTAS working towards LHR-SYD non-stop flights]. I don't care what range-extending technology they come up with. They can keep them. And if in some alternate reality they were to offer MAN-SYD non-stop they can keep that too. I just wouldn't contemplate booking such a long flight for myself ever and I would never recommend it to family or friends ... not ever. And QANTAS believe they'll be able to charge a premium for this? They'd have to pay me to go on it and I'd have to be dragged on kicking and screaming even then. Why do they suppose that large volumes of pax desire to ignore and overfly all the wonderful en route stopover options and instead put themselves through 24 hours of unrelenting claustrophobic DVT-inducing torture? If they're banking on us all choosing to book that they could be in for a big shock. It is reminiscent of the mobile phone manufacturers who made phones smaller and smaller simply because technology advances allowed them to keep doing that ... eventually customers with a bit of common sense started saying: "Hang on! We want a bigger screen and a handset which is comfortable to hold!"

One possible explanation for the healthy state of bookings around that time Ethan could be the start of the Ashes in Australia in late November / early December? Usually a good few thousand will be travelling out for that.