Scoot (TR, Singapore Changi) has announced it will suspend four Asian routes from Singapore Changi due to a "combination of weak demand and a shortage of aircraft resources".
The Singaporean low-cost carrier will terminate flights to Lucknow in India on June 29, 2019; to Kalibo in the Philippines on June 30; to Quanzhou in China on August 24; and to Malé in the Maldives on October 25.
Scoot flies to all four cities using its A320-200 aircraft. Lucknow, Kalibo, and Quanzhou are served 3x weekly and Malé 4x weekly.
The LCC unit of Singapore Airlines Group does not operate any B737-8s itself but is nonetheless affected by the grounding of the type. Its full-service sister carrier SilkAir (SLK, Singapore Changi) was supposed to transfer its B737-800s to Scoot and replace them with newly delivered MAX 8s. However, the transfer was suspended pending the end of the grounding of MAX 8s and the resumption of new deliveries.
Scoot underlined that it still intends to take over 15 other routes from SilkAir, namely to:
- Coimbatore, Thiruvananthapuram, and Vishakhapatnam in India between May 2019 and October 2019,
- Changsha Huanghua, Fuzhou, Kunming Changshui, and Wuhan in China between May 2019 and June 2019,
- Chiang Mai in Thailand in October 2019,
- Kota Kinabalu in Malaysia, in December 2019,
- Balikpapan, Praya Lombok International, Makassar, Manado, Semarang, and Yogyakarta Adisutjipto in Indonesia between May 2020 and July 2020.
Scoot already took over services to Luang Prabang and Vientiane from SilkAir.
The first of the fourteen B737-800s scheduled for transfer to Scoot was initially due to be grounded for pre-delivery maintenance in May 2019 and to subsequently enter into service with Scoot in June or July.
