Plane spotters in Melbourne will soon be greeted by a once-familiar sight – the Singapore Airlines A380 aircraft. The airline plans to return the superjumbo to the city after almost four years and will also start a second A380 service to Sydney around the same time.

Back in Melbourne

For the first time in almost four years, Singapore Airlines will deploy its Airbus A380 aircraft to Melbourne starting May next year. From May 16th, 2023, through to October 28th, 2023, SQ237, from Singapore to Melbourne, and the return flight, SQ228, will be operated by the A380 instead of the current Boeing 777-300ER.

This means that some Melbourne-bound passengers from Singapore can also expect 78 business class seats in the upper cabin of the double-decker plane. With the aircraft back in action during the peak summer season, Singapore Airlines will also exceed its pre-Covid seat capacity to Melbourne, operating at 110% when compared to its operations in January 2020.

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But Melbourne’s not the only Australian city to receive love from the airline. A day later, Singapore Airlines will also start a second daily A380 service to Sydney, reaching 98% of its pre-Covid seat capacity from the NSW capital and will see Suites or First Class offered on three of the four daily flights between Singapore and Sydney.

Louis Arul, Singapore Airlines Regional Vice President South West Pacific, commented,

“Travel demand remains strong for 2023, particularly during the Northern Summer period. The relaxation of border controls in Southeast Asia and parts of East Asia has resulted in an uptick in travel which we expect will continue into the Northern Summer peak.”

“These additional A380 flights to Melbourne and Sydney will help to deliver even more opportunities for Australians to travel for business or pleasure in 2023.”

Schedule

From May 16th, 2023, SIA’s schedule to Melbourne will look like this:

From May 17th, 2023, SIA’s schedule to Sydney will look like this:

Approaching pre-pandemic levels

These changes to Australian services are part of SIA’s broader capacity change across the network. The airline will increase services to destinations across East and South East Asia in an ongoing effort to restore its pre-pandemic capacity in these regions. Some other popular destinations that will see capacity increase include Osaka, Seoul, Taipei, Siem Reap, and Kuala Lumpur, among others.

Find more news about Asian aviation here.

The airline has been progressively increasing capacity all through 2022. In October, the SIA group, which also includes Scoot, grew 6.2% month-on-month and reached 71% of pre-COVID passenger capacity. With China still not fully open, SIA won’t return to 100% pre-pandemic levels anytime soon, but judging from its plans for other destinations, it will see a substantial improvement as it enters 2023.

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  Singapore Airlines

  IATA/ICAO Code:

  SQ/SIA

  Airline Type:

  Full Service Carrier

  Hub(s):

  Singapore Changi Airport

  Year Founded:

  1972

  Alliance:

  Star Alliance

  CEO:

  Goh Choon Phong

  Country:

  Singapore

• 

  Airbus

  Stock Code:

  AIR

  Date Founded:

  1970-12-18

  CEO:

  Guillaume Faury

  Headquarters Location:

  Toulouse, France

  Key Product Lines:

  Airbus A220, Airbus A320, Airbus A330, Airbus A340, Airbus A350, Airbus A380

  Business Type:

  Planemaker