CHENNAI: SCOOT Airways, Singapore Airlines’ long haul budget carrier, entered the Indian market on Tuesday, with the launch of two new connections to Singapore. One, a brand new connection for Amritsar, and another for Chennai.
The Chennai-Singapore route will be taken over by Scoot from sister concern Tiger Airways.
“We feel that the Chennai to Singapore route is ready for a larger quantum of seats. Tiger Airways’ aircraft have maximum capacities of around 180 seats. Scoot will be offering around 335 seats per filght,” said Scoot Airways’ India Head Bharath Mahadevan.
The airline is set to operate a daily direct service to Chennai from Singapore with a 335-seater Boeing 787-800 aircraft while Amritsar would have three-times-a-week operations service with a 375-seater B787-900 plane. Tigerair, which will be replaced by Scoot on the Chennai route, has been operating 12 flights a week with narrow-body aircraft. Scoot has also announced that it will launch one more route, Jaipur to SIngapore, in October of this year.
“India is one of the fastest growing aviation markets in the world. Guests from India can now fly to destinations in our Asia-Pacific network through the Singapore hub, as well as onward with Singapore Airlines, SilkAir and Tigerair in the SIA Group portfolio,” Chief Commercial Officer for Scoot and Tigerair, Leslie Thng said.
Scoot however, is considering newer connections, mostly to smaller unconnected cities like Kochi. According to Mahadevan, new connections will be evaluated on a case by case basis.
Coupled with its competitive pricing, Scoot expects that it will acheive 80 per cent occupancy on its flights from Amritsar and Jaipur, while it expects to do better with the more mature Chennai route. Scoot also plans to scale up frequency from Amritsar to four times a week, starting July 2.
India is one of the fastest growing aviation markets. Indian guests can now fly to destinations in our Asia-Pacific network through the Singapore hub
- Leslie Thng, CCO, Scoot Airways