Tuesday, 20 January 2009: After massively growing capacity last year, and as such suffering from much lower load factors, Singapore Airlines has entered into the new year by announcing massive capacity cuts.
To be undertaken gradually from now until March, Singapore Airlines intends to cut 214 flights, or around 3% of its current scheduled services.
“We are approaching the economic downturn with the same broad approach to capacity that we had during the SARS downturn in 2003,” said a Singapore Airlines Spokesperson to local paper The Straits Times.
“We do not want to be flying half-empty planes around the world any longer than we have to, because it increases our cost burden at a time when we can least afford it.”
While exact which exact services have not been named, it is expected that Singapore will cut many of its Australian services, downgrading capacity to Perth, Sydney and Brisbane.
Other destinations which will see lower levels of capacity include London, Zurich, Mumbai, Shanghai and Hong Kong.
Since the new year, Singapore has announced other cost savings measures, which have included offering cargo pilots up to 30 months of leave without pay.
In all of 2008, Singapore Airlines did not see a single month which grew year-on-year load factors due to a heaping of extra capacity across the entire network.
Singapore Airlines’ last year-on-year load factor increase was December 2007 with a 0.3% increase to 84.3%.
