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BA to deploy A380 on Singapore route

19 Feb 2014 by Alex McWhirter

British Airways will deploy an A380 on its London Heathrow to Singapore route from October 28.

The service will initially operate three-times weekly, with outbound flights departing on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, and each return leg taking-off the following day.

From February 9, BA will upgrade the service to daily, adding 4,000 seats a month to the route.

Flight BA11 will depart LHR at 1920 and arrive in Singapore the following day at 1555, while return service BA12 will leave Singapore at 2310 and land at Heathrow at 0450 the next morning.

Other flights on the route — including BA15/BA16, which continues beyond Singapore to Sydney — will continue as before.

It would appear that BA is taking advantage of greater passenger demand between London and Singapore now that Qantas no longer plies the route on the way to London. Qantas now operates the kangaroo route over Dubai.

BA may also wish to cash-in on those Sydney-bound passengers who prefer to break their journey in Singapore rather than in Dubai or Abu Dhabi.

Writing in his Plane Talking blog, Australian journalist Ben Sandilands said: "The move [by BA] is clearly intended to leverage the preference of some travellers on the kangaroo route to fly via Asia than the Middle East."

The big question must be whether or not BA will eventually extend A380 service beyond Singapore to Sydney.

It's logical, but in terms of aircraft utilisation and yield it's inefficient because tagging on Sydney would mean BA's A380 would be away from base for an extra day. It would therefore earn only a little more revenue (the cost of London-Singapore return isn't significantly less than London-Sydney return).

But BA will face stiff competition in terms of service and price from SIA. Singapore's national carrier flies up to four-times daily from London Heathrow with many services also A380-operated.

ba.com

Alex McWhirter

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