Singapore Airlines (SIA) will hit 15 per cent of its usual passenger capacity by the end of 2020.

The national carrier said in a media release that it will continue to increase flights gradually.

Some signs of minor recovery

SIA said in an earlier update that its passenger capacity by end-November will reach about 11 per cent of its pre-Covid-19 pandemic levels.

The national carrier also said it expects to be operating at less than 50 per cent of its usual capacity by the end of its financial year in March 2021.

Reinstating flights to 4 locations

The carrier and its regional arm, SilkAir, will be reinstating flights to four locations in the next three months:

- Brunei,

- Fukuoka in Japan,

- Kathmandu in Nepal, and

- Male in the Maldives.

Flights will also increase on some existing routes.

By December, SIA will be flying daily to and from Bangkok by December.

Daily flights to Melbourne will be available by November, and two flights daily on most days will be available in December.

Flight frequencies to other cities will also be increased, including Dhaka, Hong Kong and Amsterdam.

Cancellations

However, there are still cancellations for some flights.

All other flights originally scheduled for October to December, but not listed in its updated schedule, are cancelled.

Affected customers will be informed via SMS and e-mail.

Forecast poor

The International Air Transport Association (Iata) has recently downgraded its traffic forecast for this year to a 66 per cent decline.

This is worse than an earlier 63 per cent estimate.

Iata said: "Based on flight data, the recovery in air passenger services was brought to a halt in mid-August by a return of government restrictions in the face of new Covid-19 outbreaks in a number of key markets."

"Forward bookings for air travel in the fourth quarter show that the recovery since the April low point will continue to falter."

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