SIA the parent airline's Australia schedule for Dec-2017 and Jan-2018 include 35 weekly flights to Sydney, 31 to Melbourne, 28 to Brisbane, 28 to Perth, seven to Adelaide and four to Canberra. Brisbane has been boosted by four frequencies and Melbourne by three frequencies compared to last winter.
Adelaide, Canberra, Perth and Sydney capacity is the same as last winter. However, last winter featured an increase in Sydney and the launch of Canberra.
The seven additional frequencies this winter brings the total SIA mainline operation to 133 weekly flights, up 6% from last year. This excludes four weekly tag flights from Canberra to Wellington. When including these flights, the SIA mainline total is 137 weekly flights and the SIA Group total is 172 weekly flights.
SIA uses every aircraft type in its diverse fleet - A380s, A350-900s, A330-300s, 777-200s, 777-200ERs, 777-300s and 777-300ERs - on its Australia routes. The flagship A380 will be used this winter on two daily Sydney flights and one daily Melbourne flight.
The SIA Group will have more capacity in the Australian market this winter than any foreign airline group.
SIA low-cost subsidiary Scoot' will operate 24 weekly flights to Australia in Dec-2017 and Jan-2018. The Scoot schedule includes seven weekly frequencies to both Perth and Sydney, six to Melbourne and four to the Gold Coast. This matches Scoot's schedule from last winter. Scoot operates 787-8s and 787-9s to Australia.
Full service regional subsidiary SilkAir will operate 11 flights to Australia this winter, including six to Darwin and five to Cairns. This is up from 10 flights, including six to Darwin and four to Cairns, from last winter. SilkAir currently operates 737-800s to Australia and plans to introduce the 737 MAX 8 on the Singapore-Cairns route by the end of 2017.
The SIA Group will have more capacity in the Australian market this winter than any foreign airline group. However, Air New Zealand will have slightly more flights - 175 one-way flights per week, which is just seven more than SIA (or three more when including SIA's Canberra-Wellington service).
SIA is one of 10 Southeast Asian airline groups serving the Australia market. AirAsia/AirAsia X is the second largest group and plans to operate 85 weekly flights in the Australian market during the peak winter months - or roughly half the number of flights as SIA. The AirAsia/AirAsia X figure includes 78 weekly flights from Southeast Asia (Indonesia and Malaysia) to Australia and seven weekly flights from Australia to New Zealand (Gold Coast-Auckland).
The third largest Southeast Asian airline group in the Australia market, Malaysia Airlines, will be down to 40 weekly flights to Australia this winter. Thai Airways will have 38 weekly flights and Garuda will have 32 weekly flights. The Lion Group will operate approximately 40 weekly flights to Australia this winter but is smaller than Malaysia Airlines, Thai Airways and Garuda based on seat capacity as it only operates narrowbody aircraft.
Philippine Airlines will have 24 weekly return flights in the Australian market this winter - which is less than what SIA will have per day. Vietnam Airlines will have 17 weekly flights, Royal Brunei seven weekly flights and Cebu Pacific rounds out the list with five weekly flights.