Singapore Airlines (SIA) is today commemorating its Emerald anniversary of continuous service to Australia, with Tuesday 5 April 2022 marking 55 years to the day since SIA’s first flight down under.
On 5 April 1967, Perth and Sydney became the first destinations outside South East and North Asia to join the Airlines’ network, when an MSA Boeing 707-320 fanjet arrived in Perth before continuing on its journey to Sydney.
The milestone comes in the midst of the most tumultuous period in the aviation industry’s history, which saw SIA maintain connectivity to the Australian market, despite up to 96% of its global capacity being grounded due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Singapore Airlines Regional Vice President South-West Pacific, Mr Louis Arul, said while work to rebuild the business continued, the historic milestone could not go unrecognised.
“The past two years have been incredibly challenging, but Singapore Airlines remained steadfast in its commitment to keeping Australia connected and today we mark 55 years of continuous service to Australia, a milestone we are incredibly proud of,” Mr Arul said.
“Australia has always been an important part of our global network and as we continue to rebuild and recover after the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic we want to thank the Australian public for their continued support over such a long period of time.
“When we began operations 55 years ago it would have been hard to imagine that the SIA group could grow our operations to 200-weekly flights from nine Australian cities, prior to the pandemic.
“We are incredibly grateful for the support of the Australian public, the travel trade and the many and varied stakeholders and partners who have supported us over this period.
“Our commitment to these shores has been unwavering and as recovery for international travel continues, we look forward to increasing our services and providing Australians with a variety of travel options that allow them to once again reconnect with loved ones and explore the world.”
Since joining SIA’s global network in 1967, SIA and Australia have shared a number of historic firsts. Australia played host to the first flight of the world’s largest passenger aircraft, the Airbus A380, as SIA became the first to fly the customer-favourite in 2007.
Australia was also the first to receive SIA’s new A380 products in 2018 along with SIA’s first Airbus A350-900 medium-haul aircraft.
hile on 1 November 2021 SIA was the first airline to arrive in Sydney and Melbourne following the re-opening of Australia’s borders.
Currently, SIA operates 100 passenger flights a week from seven destinations in Australia, and 11 freighter services a week including:
- 5x weekly passenger services from Adelaide
- 21x weekly passenger services from Brisbane
- 3x weekly passenger services from Cairns (Cairns is scheduled to increase to 5x weekly services from 30 May)
- 1x weekly passenger services from Darwin (with two Adhoc services scheduled for 7 and 14 April and a planned increase to 3x weekly passenger services from 1 May)
- 21x weekly passenger services & 5x weekly freighter services from Melbourne (Melbourne is scheduled to increase to 28x weekly passenger services in June 2022)
- 21x weekly passenger services from Perth; and
- 28x weekly passenger flights & 6x weekly freighter services from Sydney
In addition to these services, SIA continues to support Australian producers and exporters through the Commonwealth Government’s IFAM programme operating a once-weekly service between Adelaide and Singapore, as well as a once-weekly service between Wellcamp (Toowoomba), Cairns and Singapore.
Over the course of 2020 and 2021 when Australia’s borders were closed, Singapore Airlines continued to provide passenger and cargo-only services to Australia, to ensure essential travel could occur and key trade channels could remain open.
From April 2020 through to September 2021, when Australia’s borders remained shut and strict passenger arrival caps were in place, SIA operated almost 3,800 passenger flights to Australia (Scoot an additional 739), which assisted almost 74,000 (almost 66,700 on SIA) people travel to Australia – the vast majority being returning Australians.
In addition to these services, SIA also ran an additional 57 charter services between June 2020 and October 2021, helping around 13,000 people either return to Australia or travel safely back to their homes around the globe.
SIA also supported travel for a large number of Australian Olympians to and from the Tokyo Olympic Games, on a mix of commercial and charter services.
In addition to these flights, SIA operated a number of different Cargo services to support the import and export of essential supplies.
Over the period of April 2020 – to September 2021, SIA operated 1,130 passenger aircraft carrying cargo-only flights, a further 1,526 freighter-only flights and an additional 232 cargo-only flights, which were supported by the federal government’s IFAM programme.
These services helped to import almost 100,000 tonnes of cargo, which included almost 4,100 tonnes of medical supplies, essential pharmaceuticals, PPE and vaccinations.
Working closely with DHL Global SIA has delivered almost 50 shipments of COVID-19 vaccines to Australia.
SIA also helped to carry more than 71,000 Tonnes of cargo from Australia to key markets overseas. With more than 230 flights mounted as part of the IFAM programme from Perth, Adelaide, Wellcamp and Cairns, SIA has transported almost 8,200 Tonnes of Australian produce and essential cargo to key markets around the globe.
The top five key exports over the past 18 months have been:
- Perishables (fruits, vegetables, dairy etc) – more than 13,000 Tonnes
- General Cargo – over 9,500 Tonnes
- Pork – almost 8,300 Tonnes
- Meat (Lamb, Beef) – over 5,700 Tonnes; and
- Lobsters – almost 3,700 Tonnes
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