Singapore Airlines will be upping its current daily Paris service to a 10-times-weekly one for the northern winter season.

Beginning October 30 this year and running until March 24, 2018, the new SQ333/SQ334 flights will operate on Monday, Thursday and Saturday, adding to the airline’s existing SQ335/SQ336 daily operations.

The new service will depart slightly later than the current flights, with the outbound SQ334 Singapore-Paris flight departing at 0230 and arriving at 0930 (just over two hours after SQ336). Meanwhile the return leg will depart and arrive in the afternoon, with SQ333 leaving Paris at 1800 and arriving at 1340 the next day, five hours later than SQ335.

However, while the service frequency on the route will increase this winter, the overall weekly capacity of the route will actually drop by 447 seats. That’s because Singapore Airlines will be deploying its B777-300ER on both the new thrice-weekly seats as well as its existing daily service, which is currently served by its four-class, 441-seat A380-800.

The carrier’s B777-300ER, meanwhile, is configured with just 264 seats across four classes by comparison. These include four in first, 48 in business, 28 in premium economy and 184 in economy class.

This would appear to mark the retirement of Singapore Airlines’ first and oldest A380 – a process the airline first announced would happen last September. The carrier has previously stated it would not be renewing the lease of its four oldest A380s, which are on a 10-year lease and will begin expiring this October.

Singapore Airlines has not stated whether the route will revert back to an A380 after the northern winter period or remain operated by the B777-300ER. Business Traveller Asia-Pacific has reached out to Singapore Airlines for comment.

Last month, Business Traveller reported that Singapore Airlines’ old A380s may be set for the private jet market.

singaporeair.com